Iowa High School Tennis

Another school year has begun and we are off to the races! Nearly two months into the new school year, temperatures are starting to drop (some places even have had a snowfall in Northern Iowa already, that is crazy, it is OCTOBER!). Luckily there are still a couple days this week that look to be warm enough to get a couple more hits in outside, so grab a buddy a get some work in. Where does that bring us? Oh yes, a big recruiting period! Players, especially seniors, are now going on more college visits, juniors are beginning to think about post-graduation plans, because it is never to early to begin the process right? With that, I am bringing out my Top 10 recruits for the senior and junior classes both Boys and Girls. One new list will be out each of the first four days this week, so stay tuned and enjoy!

pc: the gazette The summer grind is well underway with multiple tournaments having taken place thus far. Lots more opportunities this summer to get out and compete, improve your game and ranking all at the same time. Doing my best to do a summer update with the soon-to-be seniors and where players are at with post graduation plans. Players mentioned in this article were individuals that were able to get back to me about where they are currently at! There are many other rising seniors that are going to be in the recruiting mix.

Another great high school tennis season is in the books for the State of Iowa. New State Champions were crowned, players got another year of experience and for the first time it seemed like we had an indoor season! (thanks weather). As we come to a close, here at the blog I wanted to get awards out this year including 1st/2nd team selections, freshman of the year, senior of the year and coach of the year. All of the 1A/2A Boys/Girls will be listed below and you can also see the tweets with the pictures of selections posted. This is by no means state official, but blog official is the next best right?!

2019 Year End Blog Power Rankings...

Tomorrow is the last day of the 2019 high school tennis season, well I guess we do have Co-Ed state next week! Regardless, four teams in Columbus, Xavier, Shenandoah and Wahlert have a chance at a team state title tomorrow. Columbus is the defending state champions and enter the final four as the #1 seed. They are undefeated this year and have wins over both Wahlert and Xavier.

Defending Champions Iowa City West is back into the field and joined by Ames, Dowling and Cedar Falls. This MVC/CIML clash of semi-finals should be some really good tennis tomorrow and I really think all of these teams have a chance to lift the trophy tomorrow afternoon. It has been a crazy fun year, lots of great results throughout the season and we even have almost had an indoor season this spring! Ladies and Gentleman, buckle up because this is one of the last days of the 2019 season.

Defending Champs are back! Both defending champs are back into their same draw as they won a year ago. Charoenkul of Faifield enters the singles tournament as the #2 seed this year. The new rule change went into effect and allowed Charoenkul to be seeded as she was the state champion in 2018 but lost to teammate Yana Gaskell in the district final this year. In the doubles draw, Taylor Hogan from Waterloo Columbus is back to defend her 2018 crown but brings in a new partner in Elysse Trost. Hogan/Trost enter the tournament as the #1 seed. Hogan, for people that may not know, is an excellent gymnast where she is believed to continue gymnastics at the collegiate level.

Two Defending State Champions!

Final Four time! 4 teams, 1 champion. Des Moines is the home of the tournament play tomorrow and I know these four teams are ready to roll. It doesn't look like it will be very hot with temperatures in the 60s, and hopefully no rain! I am excited for a great day of play tomorrow and a new champion will be crowned!

CLASS 2A TEAM STATE FINAL FOUR!!! The grand finale is here!!! 4 teams remain in the quest to win it all and finish as the lone victor. Let's take a look at the semifinal match-ups and analyze who is favored at each position.

Just one more sleep until the boys state tournaments begin! Lots of fun headlines this year and I expect all four draws to provide some great tennis and competitive matches. 2ARedwood and myself dive into a quick round table discussion on a couple of different categories for this years tournaments! - Iowa HS Tennis

In the words of Hilary Clinton in 2016, "I'm just chillin' in Cedar Rapids 😎"...if you haven't seen the Snapchat video of Hilary saying this quirky phrase on the campaign trail, I'd highly recommend you look it up. Like Hilary on that day,  the Class 2A state qualifiers will be "chillin in Cedar Rapids" on May 24-25 at Veterans Memorial Tennis Center. This year's doubles and singles tournaments are filled with great competitors from across the state including a handful of past individual champions, six freshmen, and a number of place winners who came extremely close to grabbing gold in last year's state tournament. Thanks to districts being the most balanced they have been in a long time, we should be looking at at an unusually deep pool of competitors this year. Let's take a look at the highlights of the tournament and of each bracket. Left: Tim Ellis, Ames; Middle: Ty Sherman and Rami Scheetz, CR Washington; Right: Jack Wenzel,...

This year's doubles and singles tournaments are filled with great competitors from across the state including a handful of past individual champions, six freshmen, and a number of place winners who came extremely close to grabbing gold in last year's state tournament. Thanks to districts being the most balanced they have been in a long time, we should be looking at at an unusually deep pool of competitors this year. Let's take a look at the highlights of the tournament and of each bracket. Left: Jon Lansing ('18) CR Xavier, Ryan and Luke Willis ('18) Waverly-Shell Rock

We are really hitting the post season grind now! What an eventful weekend with some teams already into the final four, some teams haven't even played a post season meet yet. To get you caught up on all the action, I put together some quick headlines over the past few days, as well as links to the live updated tournament brackets. This week there will be boys singles and doubles state tournament previews. A roundtable feature where myself and my (newly named: 2A Redwood) guest will answer some questions about this years state tournament. As always, if you have comments, corrections, or just want to talk tennis, comment here, email iowahstennis@gmail.com or message me on twitter!

Road to the Final Four - 1A Boys

May 14th Blog Power Rankings...

2A Boys Team 1A Boys Team 2A Girls Team 1A Girls Team 2A Boys Singles 2A Boys Singles Consolation 2A Boys Doubles 2A Boys Doubles Consolation 1A Boys Singles 1A Boys Singles Consolation 1A Boys Doubles 1A Boys Doubles Consolation 2A Girls Singles 2A Girls Doubles 1A Girls Singles 1A Girls Doubles

Boy, has it been a busy Friday! Three districts were able to complete play on Wednesday with the remaining 13 sites in progress today. I'll throw in some form of recap for districts next week, but I am here for the Girls regionals right now. It's been a busy week, so this won't be super in depth, but a little something to get you prepared for what will be happening for this weekend and the next.

As postseason officially kicks off today with three boys districts underway today. I had got a request with a great question about how postseason works. Below I have done my best to explain how the postseason works for both the boys and girls as they are slightly different. To the best of my ability, this is what I understand postseason play to include.

May 7th Blog Power Rankings...

The first leg of postseason play has arrived, and we are excited to dive in and discuss wheat we think will happen in each district. But first, let's breakdown the ramifications of districts for anyone not familiar. On Wednesday, May 8, 24/48 teams will advance to substate and 48/288 players will punch their ticket to the individual state tournament in cedar rapids. With so few entrants (16 for singles and doubles), many well-deserving players are bound to be left out. But unlike previous years, state administrators did a great job of disbursing talent across districts and avoiding awkward situations such as Jiung Jung playing Joe Hoff in both the districts and the state finals in 2016-2017, or #2 CR Washington being paired in the same district with #1 Iowa City West in 2017.

We love Iowa High School Tennis and I am continuing to push along and give you guys some type of content! Preview #3 is here where we take a peak at the 2A Girls Ind. Regionals. Some names you might know, some names might be new. No matter who, this will be the start of a fun post season where defending champions start title defenses, first time state qualifies and more state champions will be crowned. May 15 is the first step in the post season grind.

The first of the Women's side, we have 1A individual regionals. For those of you that do not know the format, I will break it down. Unlike the boys side, this is strictly individual, there are no team implications at these regionals. There are eight regions and teams are allowed to enter two singles entries and two doubles entries. Players that reach the finals of the region have qualified for the state tournament. Region winners are eligible to be seeded. A runner-up is able to be seeded in the following circumstance, and you can read about that rule change  here.  May the odds ever be in your favor.

April 30th Blog Power Rankings...

2019 has been a great season thus far, with a couple upsets here and there, but mostly, the weather has been much better. Yes, there was a bit of snow two days ago..overall it has been a much nicer spring. Funny to say that because I think rain is called for a lot this week, nonetheless, meets will be played at some point! As we ramp up for post season, district assignments came out last week and this is a time we can take a little bit of a closer look on teams and players that could keep their seasons alive.

April 23rd Blog Power Rankings...

2019 Recruiting Class

April 16th Blog Power Rankings...

April 9th Blog Power Rankings...                 

The calendar has turned to April and the 2019 season is in full swing. Now you might be wondering why the title of this article is *Rule Change!* Well I am here to let know you what the madness is all about. Let's do a quick breakdown of what the Iowa HS Tennis world has changed up.

Hello Iowa High School Tennis fans! The 2019 season is officially underway as of the 11th and we should be in for another exciting season across the state. I will start off 2019 with preseason rankings for all of the classes and then will look to have a feature on some players to watch this year. Lets dive in shall we...

Iowa Schools Snapshots of college tennis programs in the state of Iowa. Check out brief descriptions for each program including location, enrollment, UTR stats and more.