You probably missed it, what with the agony of OSU football snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Texas in the Bowl of Tortilla Chips and everything, but last week was a milestone for the Ohio State Men’s Tennis (OSMT) program. It was named the 2009 NCAA pre-season #1, completing a meteoric rise up the intercollegiate tennis rankings. I won’t even bother to explain how college tennis works. Just know that unlike college football or basketball rankings, which depend on how a team did six months ago, the tennis rankings depend on what your team did last month.
Like all meteoric rises, this one was many years in the making. Former Ohio State player Ty Tucker was named head coach before the 1999-2000 season and they’ve improved by leaps and bounds over the last five years. It is not easy to crash the top of the charts in college tennis. The simplest way to do it is to recruit players from overseas. All the programs are going that route, even the historically great ones like Georgia and UCLA. It’s also not easy for cold climate programs to compete consistently with the big guns, but here is OSU with the #1 ranked singles player Bryan Koniecko, plus the #3 and #6 and a good doubles team. They’ve also just signed America’s #1 ranked junior player, Chase Buchanan, a New Albany native.
You think other college athletic departments want to know how Ohio State and Florida are screening their coaching candidates? Because really, these two schools have made major hires in football, basketball, tennis and several other sports, with overwhelming success. Ohio State seems to be taking big risks on locals like Tressel and Thad Matta (stolen from Xavier, as we all know), while Florida went with young coaches with impressive mentors (Lou Holtz, Pitino) (unfortunately ensuring we’re all seeing way too much of the ugliest unis in sports, the vomit-inducing orange and blue).
Rest of the top 10.
1. Ohio State (17)
2. Texas (4)
3. Georgia (10)
4. UCLA (2)
5. Virginia
6. USC
7. Baylor
8. Tennessee
9. Mississippi
10. Florida
Passing Shots 
Mike Gleeson
January 13, 2009
Chase Buchanan is good and will only strengthen an already solid program. I’ve followed college tennis for a while, and even I didn’t see Ohio State ever being a #1 team but a combination of great recruiting and coaching really put them on top.
Did you ever play tennis yourself? I did, for years, and could have had several tennis scholarships if I didn’t quit my senior year of high school. What a shame. It’s a great sport and I’ve been playing and following it a lot more recently.
We’re looking for tennis bloggers at http://www.collegefanz.com, the largest college sports site on the net. We currently don’t have anybody blogging about tennis, and it’s something I’d really like to see there.
Our blogs are free and easy, and come with a built-in audience: our user base. Take a look around the site and let me know what you think at mgleeson@collegefanz.com. I look forward to hearing from you soon; it’s hard finding any tennis content!
Mike