Yes you get the best possible player you can....but if all things equal I think an American should get a chance over someone from another country...

Just like they do in the US open they give the winner of the Junior title a wild-card into the tourney not a foreigner..Do you think there is something xenophobic about that??

[This message has been edited by XIaggie (edited 2/17/2011 12:42p).]

Like I said before, I totally agree with the first part of what you just said. The problem is, all things are not equal. We simply aren't going to beat UCLA, Stanford, Duke, Florida, Georgia...and even t.u. etc. for enough American girls to be a top-10 team. There is a reason why all of the best players recently have been international. Nazari, Elze, Jessica Roland, Helga Viera, Blagodarova, etc. Sure every once in a while you strike the jackpot with an overlooked Anna Lubinsky or Morgan Frank but you're not going to beat Baylor and t.u. with mostly Americans and as you XL are so fond of pointing out, I think Kleinecke has proven that.

So to keep on pounding the issue even though you know we can't be as good as we want to be with a team filled mostly with Americans is just weird. I mean, do you want to be good or do you want to have 6 Americans on scholarship, because you can't have both right now at Texas A&M.

The U.S. Open Wildcard thing is a bad analogy. The U.S. Open has a vested interest in developing American junior tennis and in giving Americans opportunities to succeed. Trust me, if they wanted the best players they wouldn't give the NCAA champ or the US junior champ a wild card. They want to help U.S. tennis and they know that whatever American they give the WC to will be a bigger hit than giving it to #160 ATP Miloslav Russkie or whatever.

A&M tennis has no interest in developing American tennis or in starting some grassroots US tennis movement - we just want to win. We want great players who will be great representatives of the university and it just so happens that right now the best available candidates are not American. We're not giving wildcards that in the grand scheme of the tournament end up being meaningless. We're giving four year scholarships for kids that we expect to win.

I don't know, maybe it IS possible to recruit great American kids and that's just one more thing Kleinecke is not doing well. Denton seems to be doing fine at it.

Even though I think you argue just to argue and I think you make some pretty ridiculous statements, at the heart of it we both agree that we want A&M tennis to be better. Man I would LOVE if we could have 8 great American girls leading us to the top 10 - I just don't think that's gonna happen.

so tomorrow vs Illinois huh. Tough one Illinois is very good indoors.

Yeah it's a huge advantage for them. Can't wait til we get our indoors built and don't have to deal with the adjustment as much.

Good points Harry. Good conversation.

Don't be expecting the indoors anytime soon, no funds to get them built, and no one is donating money to tennis anytime soon. Sucks because they were going to be top notch if they were built.

Harry: Unfortunately our indoor is nowhere on the scale of athletic department projects...we need someone to win the lottery or something similar and agree to fund the project...other than that, there is no way it is happening in the forceable future.

George Mitchell?? He is rolling in money...

Mitchell already donated, don't look for him to do it again.

Agree Bigfoot. If Mr. Mitchell wanted to fund an indoor facility he would have already done it.

I didn't know that about the indoors - that's too bad. Not that I have the means to make it happen but just out of curiosity, anyone know how short on funds they are? All of it?

So where do they play...Bryan or The Woodlands..

I remember a few matches being played at The Woods CC.

I believe they are more than half short.

If they have to play indoors, they go to the City of Bryan indoors (read:covered) courts by Mitchell Elementary. They are indoors in the slightest sense of the word. Very fast, not A/C or heated, and loud as hell. Plus, only 3 courts. Takes a while to play a match. If they were a slower playing surface, they would be an advantage to us, but with them being quick, any indoor team that comes in feels right at home.

The men went to the indoors in Houston a few times, but I believe that was before the 3 covered courts in Bryan were built.

GREAT job tonight taking down #5 Ohio State!!

Whoop!

Big win tonight...Love it!!

Too bad they didn't finish out the match Anyone know why? Doesn't surprise me really, tOSU coach is a weird one. I think we would have won the last three matches and against all ranked players which would have helped us out a lot. Of course that is probably why they didn't want to finish.

wow nice win

I guess you've gotta pull that kinda stuff to have 6 singles players ranked...

Man, that win is UN-real, especially in how dominating it was. I was skeptical, but I'm really loving our chances at a final 4 right now!

What the hell was going on with the Ohio coach's and our coach after the doubles.

They sure whined a lot!!

Get a chance to prove it against Illinois tomorrow!

energy was awesome at the match last night...had it played out could have easily been 6-1 or 7-0....hopefully they can bring that same energy against Illinois tomorrow and not have a let down

The Ohio State match was more like what we expected from this team...nice to be outdoors and at home....I am out of town and missed it, but from the people I talked to, this sounded like domination...great job by our guys and coaches...let get Illinois...

Tennis CRUNCHED Illinois 7-0. Their coach spouted off something about how it was because of the wind and that they could have totally pulled out of the match if they had wanted to. Illinois' first outdoor match this season.

fantastic!

Glad Big Steve doesn't cry like that when we lose indoors!

Good thing ncaa's in May is played indoors....oh wait...get over it Illinois coach. I love how in his quote he makes it seem like he was doing us a favor by deciding to play, "even though they didn't have to." Any comments on the wind from someone who was there?

Brad Dancer: "waaaah waaaah waaah waaaah"

He's always been a baby, wish I could have been there to get in his ear. Two good wins, awesome that we are able to beat top teams with 8 or 9 guys contributing. Hopefully everyone gets some rest and is back in top form for next week, because Cal and Pepperdine are both pretty solid this year.

Great weekend for Bob, Steve, and the guys.

Excellent work by the guys...on to California...

I was at the match. Yes,it was somewhat windy, but guess what ... They have this technology called wind screen !!! Give me a break. Lobs were some what of an issue but to be honest some of the better lobs were by their players. The 7-0 score does not indicate how close a number of the matches were, and at one point when Austin was down 5-2 in a second set tie-breaker, I remember thinking how a few shots can really turn this whole match around.

Luckily the shots went the Aggie's way and it was nice to see a sweep. Hope we get a chance to play them again. I would say 5-2 Ags.

As I tell the kids on my team, the wind blows on both sides of the court