@TennisUitgever
One of the biggest topics I’ve been asked about recently by tennis friends, fans and people in the tennis industry is…. Why are the NCAA individual singles and doubles championships now being played in the fall?
“Could there be less buzz around NCAA individuals? Why on earth did they move it?” was a text message I received this week from an experienced professional tennis manager. It was also a topic of conversation at my tennis matches in Vero Beach, Florida, made up of former college players and avid tennis and sports fans.
The NCAA and the College Tennis Brain Trust decided to initiate a two-year pilot program, which started last fall, with the individual events taking place in the fall and the end-of-season team event being played in the spring of May. Last season, the NCAA singles and doubles tournament was played in November at Baylor University of Waco, Texas, followed by the team event in May, also at Baylor. For the 2025-2026 season, the USTA National Campus at Lake Nona, Florida will host the NCAA singles and doubles tournaments in November, while the University of Georgia will host the team event in May. The change has left many fans confused and the event seems to be falling deeper into obscurity with less visibility and also a weaker field of competition.
The top college players have traditionally used the fall season, before the team competition season, to play lower-level professional events on the Futures and Challenger tours. For example, future University of Florida top 10 star Ben Shelton began cutting his teeth in professional tennis in the fall of 2021 playing on the US Tennis Association Pro Circuit in the United States, which not only helped launch his professional tennis career but also helped him gain valuable experience in major matches to help him win the NCAA singles title months later when the event was played right after the NCAA team event. Before the USTA’s efforts to create more professional circuit events in the United States, especially in the fall season, the top college players played a full fall season of college tennis.
Top players who missed this year’s tournament at Lake Nona because they were playing professional tennis events in the fall include Oliver Tarvet of the University of San Diego, who famously reached the second round of Wimbledon this year, Rafael Jodar of the University of Virginia, who won two ATP Challenger events this fall and is now ranked No. 168 in the world, and Ben Kittay, last year’s NCAA doubles runner-up. Michael Zheng, the defending NCAA singles champion from Columbia University, also played on the pro tour this fall and, like Jodar, cracked the top 200 in the ATP singles rankings, and reportedly had no plans to play the NCAAs and defend his title this fall. However, he only decided to play after an early round loss at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota Challenger. The women’s side is missing a big name: Auburn’s DJ Bennett, who reached the NCAA singles finals last fall. Bennett did play the fall college season, but because she flunked the shortened fall season of about seven weeks required to qualify for the November NCAAs, she did not qualify for the field. Instead, she played a $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Clemson, South Carolina and won the title.
One person on site at Lake Nona even said this year’s NCAA champions should have an asterisk next to their names in the history books because of the weakened field. The NCAA champion cannot legitimately claim he is the best player in college tennis this season, the person said. However, as with the boycotted Wimbledon in 1973, as the years go by no one will remember who did and did not participate in the event. If you are the NCAA Champion, you will always be remembered as the NCAA Champion and it will be on your resume for life.
The USTA had a tradition of giving wild card entry into the US Open to the winners of the NCAA singles and doubles championships, which was then changed 25 years ago to be given only to American winners of the NCAAs. Because the NCAAs switched to the fall, a full nine months away from an upcoming US Open (and likely due to the likelihood that the top college players would likely skip the fall season – and the fall NCAAs – to play professional events), the USTA opted to revoke the automatic NCAA champion US Open invitation for Americans, reducing the prestige of an NCAA singles or doubles event. Instead, the USTA created an “American Collegiate Wild Card Championship” tournament in which invited American collegiate players play a mini-tournament at the USTA National Campus, with the winners earning US Open wild cards.
As college tennis fights to gain more attention among major tennis and sports fans, holding the NCAAs in the fall is proving to be a bigger battle to break through the cluttered sports landscape. Most sports fans are more involved with college football, the National Football League and the beginnings of college basketball. At Lake Nona, I learned that many sports information and communications staff who usually accompany teams to promote their results at their local collegiate market did not attend the event or had to leave early because their colleges needed them and their talents in football and basketball games. While in the spring, when tennis doesn’t have to compete for the attention of football or basketball, tennis gets more attention. In November, most tennis fans and people in the industry are suffering from “tennis fatigue” after the long season, so it is even more difficult to capture the attention of this group with an NCAA tennis event in the fall.
John Parsons is arguably the leading media voice for college tennis with his podcast “No Ad, No Problem” and his Twitter/X account @JTweetsTennis. He and I recorded a conversation during the Round of 16 singles and doubles day at the 2025 NCAAs on Thursday, November 20e about this “conundrum” about the fall vs. spring NCAA tennis event that you can listen to here: “Why Are NCAA Tennis Individuals Now Played in the Fall?” https://youtu.be/9ksaC5-w-Jg?si=F2LJhaWEUG0Nos5H via @YouTube
One of the most recognizable names in college tennis is Reese Brantmeier from the University of North Carolina and I had a conversation with her while on site at the NCAAs about the fall vs. spring individual NCAA championships and she offered interesting perspectives from a player’s perspective. Brantmeier was a key member of North Carolina’s 2023 NCAA championship team and was a favorite in the individual championships held immediately after the team event that year. She is more of a fan of separating the individual and team championships into a fall season and a spring season.
“I love that the fall is very individual focused, so the spring can be purely team focused,” she said. “Because I think it helps people really embrace that team aspect and not worry so much about the individuality of it. Because I think with the tournament at the end of the spring, there’s always that voice in the back of your mind like, ‘Oh, I need my personal ranking. I need to qualify for the individual tournament.’ And I just really like that it’s all about the team.”
“So I like that it’s separated in the fall,” she continued. “I think this is still in the trial period, so I think there are definitely some kinks in the logistics of it to work out with the qualification system.”
After Brantmeier and her North Carolina teammates won the 2023 NCAA team title, Brantmeier couldn’t immediately turn around and compete well as one of the singles favorites, losing in the first round.
“That was a super challenge for me, and I was a freshman. I didn’t handle it very well,” she said. “I was coming off probably the biggest high I’ve ever had in the sport, and that was my goal that I was working towards all team season. We achieved that goal and then I was so excited, and then you had to turn around and play the first round. So it was really challenging.”
“And at that moment also physically,” she continued. “You’ve played a full season, you’ve played back-to-back team games, which are obviously the most competitive games you get all year, and then to turn around and have to play a first round match was very challenging. As a high seed, I lost the first round. So from my experience, obviously I would be in favor of getting that opportunity to focus on that in the fall.”
However, Brantmeier wasn’t alone in being one of the top NCAA seeds to lose early in the individual event right after the team event, as NCAA tennis history has documented. I wrote here a possible solution to this ‘attrition problem’ of the singles and doubles event held immediately after the conclusion of the team event: “Here’s a better NCAA tennis schedule – how about a tennis final four?” https://worldtennismagazine.com/heres-a-better-ncaa-tennis-schedule-and-how-about-a-tennis-final-four/21989 However, these setbacks are not solely due to exhaustion or disappointment in the team event, as at these 2025 championships in Lake Nona, the No. 1 women’s seed and overwhelming favorite, Valerie Glozman of Stanford, lost in the first round of the event to the No. men’s seed, Arizona’s Jay Friend, lost in the second round. The No. 2 men’s seed, Duncan Chan of Texas Christian, lost in the first round and No. 3 men’s seed, Aidan Kim of Ohio State, lost in the second round. The 2025 men’s and women’s singles event has been riddled with other major upsets.
However, Brantmeier acknowledged that there is more focus on college tennis in the spring.
“Obviously they promote the team event so well and it builds that anticipation throughout the team season,” Brantmeier said. “So I totally understand that everyone is in that tennis mentality in May. So it makes sense that it was there initially. But I’m curious to see where they go because I can see both sides of it.”
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