‘The Tennaissance’ How Taylor, staff plans to turn Cowboys into elite pros

outliers either; of the top 100 players on the ATP tour, 12 singles and 35 doubles players in their respective rankings developed their game on a college campus in the U.S.

PJ Tikalsky Staff Reporter

On Jan. 24, 20-year-old Ben Shelton reached the quarterfinals of the 2023 Australian Open. Shelton, a Florida native, became the youngest American to reach a quarterfinal in Melbourne since Andy Roddick. On top of that record, though, laid a long-held milestone not broken in almost 60 years — Shelton was the first NCAA singles champion to advance that far since Arthur Ashe in 1966.

J.J. Wolf, Shelton’s match opponent, held the No. 1 rank at one point at Ohio State. Wolf and Shelton aren’t

Cowboy basketball’s postseason scenarios

Gabriel Trevino and Braden Bush

A three-game losing streak where you allow an average of 91 points in the Big 12 is never a good thing; especially when you only have three games left. OSU was off the bubble on Feb. 14 before its game vs Kansas but is now looking to stay in the tournament. As Selection Sunday approaches, The O’Colly Sports put together what outcomes and their results are possible for OSU.

See Postseason on 2B

VS

OSU vs Kansas State. Tipoff: 1 p.m. Saturday

OSU vs Baylor. Tipoff: 8 p.m.

Monday

Gallagher-Iba Arena

This level of success hasn’t gone unnoticed. In addition to increased attraction from both homegrown and foreign players as a viable development option, the ATP’s new Accelerator Program — made in partnership with the ITA, college tennis’ governing body — just announced it would grant main draw and qualification spots in Challenger Tour events (the ATP’s second level of competition) to the top 20 ranked NCAA singles players at the end of the season, regardless of where they currently stand in the ATP rankings. College tennis is in a ‘Tennaissance,’ and OSU men’s coach Dustin Taylor is ready to put the Cowboys front and center of it all. He sums up his goals for the program with one idea.

“[At] Oklahoma State, you come here to win national championships … The standard here is high.”

In a globally-competitive sport with some of its greatest legends entering professional play as young as 15, for many young players vying for big-time success college used to be seen as a lateral move, perhaps even a step back.

Now?

“It’s not a hard sell anymore,” Taylor said. “At 18 years old, you’d better be physically extremely mature, mentally extremely mature, and also not feel the weight of the world pressure and financials-wise [to go pro]… but for the majority now, the world’s really seeing the benefits of college tennis and all the resources that it provides them, all the opportunity it provides them and all the growth that it provides them.”