The Colorado Buffaloes are opening their fall tennis season this weekend at the 50th annual Milwaukee Tennis Classic, with competition set for Sept. 11-13 at the Nicolet Tennis Center in Glendale, Wis.
The Buffs will be led by returners Heidi Crncan, Ema Bubalo and Lera Alexin, and they’ll also bring along Louise Ternstroem, who is making her Colorado debut. The ITA portion of the event begins at 9 a.m. Friday.
Ternstroem is the lone newcomer on an eight-woman roster and comes to Colorado from Taby, Sweden. She has spent the past three weeks training since arriving on campus.
"She's a super hard worker, really serious about her tennis," head coach Anthony Pham said. "It will be good for her to be around the other teammates and competing."
The Milwaukee Tennis Classic uses a 32-player singles draw and a 16-team doubles draw. Friday features the doubles round of 16 along with the singles rounds of 32 and 16.
Doubles teams are guaranteed three matches before reaching Saturday afternoon’s quarterfinals, while singles players are guaranteed four matches before the semifinals. The tournament’s champion earns direct entry into the All-American regional rankings.
For Colorado, the event kicks off a 10-tournament fall schedule that Pham said is designed to help players grow individually while also building toward bigger upcoming events like the ITA All-Americans and the Bedford Cup. Regular-season play does not begin until January.
"The most important thing is making sure that you are getting better," Pham said. "Doing the things that you have to do every day in order to make you a better player, a more complete player."
Pham, who was named the ITA Rocky Mountain Region Coach of the Year last season, recently had his contract extended through 2029. That keeps him in place as the seventh head coach in CU tennis history.
In Other News...
Deion Sanders Signals Colorado Special Teams Changes After Week 1 Problems
Colorados Week 1 loss to Georgia Tech left Deion Sanders with one clear area of concern, and it wasnt hard to spot. The Buffaloes had issues on special teams throughout the opener, and Sanders said the problems were tied more to personnel choices than to the system itself. He suggested the staff has already started making changes, with an eye toward tightening up kickoff coverage and settling some of the kicking responsibilities.
The kicking picture still looks unsettled, though, and that is where the biggest uncertainty remains for Colorado heading into the next stretch. Sanders pointed to protection issues on field goals and extra points as part of the broader special teams mess, which means the Buffaloes are still sorting out more than just who handles the ball. For a team trying to clean up the details after an uneven opener, those adjustments could be just as important as anything happening on offense or defense. [Read more 🡒]
Colorado Is Turning Its Home Opener Into A Recruiting Showcase
Colorados home opener is shaping up to be more than just a chance to settle into the season at Folsom Field. The Buffaloes had sold nearly 43,000 tickets as of Sept. 8, and the crowd will include a sizable recruiting contingent, with more than 70 in-state high school prospects expected on hand, including players from the 2027, 2028 and 2029 classes.
For a staff that has made long-term recruiting a priority, that kind of turnout turns a game day into a working event. It gives Colorado coaches a chance to watch young prospects up close, start relationships early and keep building ties across the state while the program looks to turn home dates into something bigger than just another Saturday in Boulder. [Read more 🡒]
Deion Sanders Is Pushing Colorado Into A Bigger College Sports Fight
Deion Sanders has never been shy about stepping into the biggest conversations in college football, and now he is lending his voice to a broader fight over how the sport operates. The Colorado coach has publicly backed the Protect College Sports Act, a bill from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that is aimed at issues surrounding the transfer portal and NIL rules, bringing another national spotlight moment to a program that already seems to live at the center of the sport's most heated debates.
Sanders also appeared in a commercial promoting the legislation, framing it as something that could help student-athletes and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban joined him in support of the bill, a notable pairing given how often the two have occupied different corners of the college football conversation. Whether the measure gains traction is still an open question, but Sanders has made clear he intends for Colorado to have a voice in that discussion. [Read more 🡒]