The Road to THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP 2024
Mar 16: USTA 10U Coed Orange & Green
Fiona Tie broke through for the first championship of the 2024 calendar of the Tennis Central Junior Circuit en route to the Tour Championship at March's USTA 10U Orange Coed event.
Kicking off the spring season, Tie grabbed Group 1 dropping just one game all morning, to third place Jordan Griffith.
Among the Orange champions, only Jay Park could outdo the Group 1 winner. He didn't falter once in four matches marching to the title in Group 3.
Tori Law and Zoe Vasquez rounded out the Orange group winners. Neither could be pushed to closer than 4-1 in any of their dominant wins.
Group 3 on the Green side was much more dramatic. James Culliton and Benjamin Zhang met early on in a faceoff decisive in the title race. Culliton won 4-3 to edge just ahead and maintained the advantage facing Arius Orban in the final round robin match.
At the same time, Zhang contended with Nathaniel Dubin, 4-2, keeping pressure on Culliton. But Culliton matched that score to win the title.
Similarly in Group 4, Brooke Dorsey had to dig deep in the final round to eclipse bronze medalist Leonardo Martinez in her closest match, 4-2. The title was hers as she had already defeated silver winner Kayden Toth, who only clinched the podium finish by sneaking past Adam Soulimani in the day's last showdown.
That left little changed at the top of the 10U leaderboard despite the long layoff since December's Fall Finals. Shiloh Auzoux remains the boy to chase with 732 points, ahead of Siena Auzoux and Lara Dabney. All three feature in this week's Anguilla Service Trips Open.
Dorsey and Tori Law made the biggest leaps after winning their groups. Dorsey improved to No. 23 on the 10U Tour, while Law cruised to victory and landed in 29th.
Champions
10U Green: Adam Bournissa, William Wang, James Culliton, Brooke Dorsey
10U Orange: Fiona Tie, Zoe Anabella Vasquez, Jay Park, Tori Law
2024 Points Change
A change to the points applied to higher-level tournaments from lower levels should reflect ages and skills better from now on. It used to be that all points were halved when applied to a higher age group's rankings. Now, the points are halved each step up the ladder, not just once.
So a player can no longer earn 80 points at 10U and count them as 40 at 16U. They would be halved at 12U (40 points), again at 14U (20 points), then again at 16U (10 points). It provides the incentive without disrupting the older players' earnings too much.
However, a younger player earning points in an older tournament, much as Arnav Nadikatla did in this Tour Championship edition, is still a sure way to rise faster in those rankings.
Remember the newly added feature to the rankings: the Plus / Minus, which will tell you how far up or down the player has moved within the last week.
The full tables now look like this.
Each weekend this spring and summer, Tennis Central is bringing you USTA and UTR tournaments at Holton-Arms School. Earn points for advancing through each round, just like on the pro tours, and qualify for the TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP at season's end.
Bigger events offer more points, with the TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP offering the most, as well as prizes.
Check here for updates each week to the Tennis Central Tour Rankings, a 52-week points system based on the pro tours, as well as recaps of all the action and photos. We'll post the 2024 schedule soon!