Taking Your Junior Across the Pond with Heath & Heath Paul Waters 
On my way to the Barnes Tennis Center, I was invited to stop by the Giavara Tennis Academy to chat with two junior players who would be competing in the USTA Southern California L2 tournament being held at Barnes alongside the ITA Masters. Here is my conversation with Ava Lawson and Tai Macdonald:
I then made the very short drive over to Barnes to watch Day 2 of competition at the ITA Masters. Ryan Redondo, the tournament director and CEO of Barnes, took a few minutes to chat with me about his role in growing tennis in the San Diego area and why hosting this event alongside a top-level junior tournament is so important:
One of the wildcards in this weekend’s Masters event is a high school junior who trains at Barnes. She took out two high-level college players on Day 1. Katie Codd has aspirations of playing college tennis herself. Both Katie and her mom, Tanya, shared some valuable insights on the COVID break and the importance of this event:
Finally, I had a chance to pick the brain of San Diego State University Men’s Coach, Gene Carswell, about the challenges of recruiting during a pandemic:
For a recap of the day’s results and links to the live scoring, go to https://www.wearecollegetennis.com/2020/10/10/four-players-move-into-the-finals-of-the-oracle-ita-masters-by-utr/.
Today’s Men’s and Women’s Finals will be televised exclusively on ESPNU with the women’s final at 2:00 PM PT and the men’s final slated for 4:00 PM PT. The USTA SoCal Junior event continues today as well. For updates on that event, go to https://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/TournamentHome/Tournament.aspx?T=247824. Good luck to all!
