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Blue Chip Matt Kandath knew it wouldn't be easy. After official recruiting visits to the University of Virginia, Duke, Princeton, and Stanford this fall, the Gansevoort, New York senior still had not made a choice. But last week, he knew the time had come.

"After Tulsa was when I really sat down with my parents to discuss everything," said Kandath, who reached the doubles final at the ITF Grade B1 Pan-American Closed there. "We put some stuff down on paper; we had some categories that we looked at - location, student body, the team, stuff like that. We sat down for a few hours just discussing everything at all four schools and when it came down to it, we just thought Stanford was the best fit."

Kandath, who turned 17 last week, was impressed by the atmosphere in Palo Alto when he visited last month.

"It's just a really vibrant community," Kandath said. "Everybody's always doing something; it's very active there. The program is going in a really great direction, and it was something I felt I really wanted to be a part of."

With freshmen Bradley Klahn and Ryan Thacher and sophomore All-American Alex Clayton, coach John Whitlinger's team has a young but strong nucleus, one that Kandath looks forward to competing with - and against.

"It's huge to have a base like that, when you know you're going to have really good competition just in practice," said Kandath, who holds the No. 6 ranking in the Class of 2009. "You have guys who really want to push themselves to get better, to do everything they can, and are huge team players. To have three guys already there at such a high level, and the rest of the team being as good as it is, it's just a big thing to come and be a part of that."