NCAA Champions Georgia and Wake Forest Top First ITA Coaches Poll; Reddy and Santhosh reach ITF J300 quarter-finals in India; TRN’s National Winter Listings for 14s and 16s; Schick defeats top seed Andrade at M25 Winston-Salem

Yet for college tennis fans, there is still some value in this inconsequential exercise, with the top 25 teams all touting their rankings on social media today to help kick off the season, and getting a chance to see what the 13 members of the ranking committee think about the prospects for last year’s top teams.

It’s clear that last year’s NCAA champions will get the benefit of any doubt, even after seeing their top players leave. The Georgia women lost their top three to graduation, but with their remaining talent and stellar recruiting class, they start the year at No. 1. The Bulldogs received 7 first-place votes; I’m not sure what happened to the other six.

At Wake Forest, Stefan Dostanic won’t be in the top spot this year, but with their returning class and newcomers Mees Rottgering and Aryan Shah, no one expects a drop-off, with the Demon Deacons receiving all 13 first-place votes.

Below are both Top 10s, with their rankings at the end of the 2024-2025 season in brackets. As you can see, there is very little deviation in the men’s list, while three women’s teams that were in the 2024-25 final Top 10 dropped out in this first preseason poll: Ohio State[6]Virginia[7] and Tennessee[9].

ITA DI Coaches Poll Top 10 for men
1. Wakebos (1)
2.Texas (3)
3. TCU (2)
4.Stanford (4)
5. Virginia (5)
6. Ohio State (6)
7. Mississippi State (10)
8. San Diego (9)
9. NC State (7)
10. Colombia (8)ITA DI Coaches Poll Top 10 for women

No. 4 seed Santhosh, a finalist in this tournament last year, defeated Yen-Chun Wang of Taiwan 6-3, 6-4 and No. 6 seed Reddy defeated Egor Shcherbakov of Russia 6-2, 6-2. Santhosh will take on No. 7 seed Min Hyuk Cho of Korea in the quarterfinals, while Reddy will take on No. 3 seed Damir Zhalgasbay of Kazakhstan. Seven of the top eight seeds have advanced to the quarterfinals, with qualifier Jang Junseo of Korea, the 2025 IMG Academy International 16s champion, the eighth quarterfinalist.

Anya Arora, the only American girl in the second round, retired in her match against wildcard Prisha Nikhil Shinde of India.

Wake Forest wild cards Rottgering and Luca Pow also advanced to Thursday’s second round.