Illinois & Georgia both pick up Top 10 wins

For the 2nd night in a row Champaign was the scene of a nail-biter but this time it was the host Illini coming out on top as they gutted out a 4-3 win over #6 North Carolina in a match that saw 5 of 6 singles matches go the distance with the deciding match coming down to a 3rd set tiebreak.  

North Carolina was able to seize the early momentum by taking the doubles point which was a point the Tar Heels figured they'd need due to having 2 of its singles starters (#2 Ronnie Schneider-shoulder & #6 Oystein Steiro-elbow) out with injuries.  

As evidenced by the the singles scores below nothing would come easy on any of the courts and it would take almost 2 hours before the first match finished which occurred at #5 singles when UNC's Robert Kelly pulled off the upset and defeated #44 Aleks Vukic 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.  With North Carolina taking 4 1st sets they had to feel good but finishing off 3 more courts would be a tall task.  

Friday 1/30/15 Men's Recap

What was expected to be an exciting Friday of college tennis didn't disappoint as both Notre Dame and Duke picked up tough hard fought wins over Northwestern and Illinois.   Oklahoma went on the road to Winston-Salem and put it to Wake Forest 

In Champaign, Illinois had a 17 match home court winning streak get snapped by a game bunch of Blue Devils from Durham.  Duke started things off by taking the doubles point but Illinois quickly tied it up as freshman stud Aleks Vukic steamrolled Bruno Semenzato at #4 singles 6-1 6-1.  It looked like Illinois was going to take a 2-1 lead with senior Ross Guignon up 6-1 5-0 on Duke junior Josh Levine at #6 singles however Levine wouldn't go away taking 1 game, then 2, then before you knew it he had it to a tiebreak which he took 7-3.  As Guignon/Levine moved into a 3rd set Duke put up a pair of straight wins from Chris Mengel at #5 singles and Jason Tahir at #1 singles to push the lead to 3-1.  Tim Kopinski would then finish off his comeback from a set down to defeat Raphael Hemmeler at #3 singles 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 which cut the Duke lead to 3-2. While Illinois's #2 Jared Hiltzik was up a break in the 3rd it would be Josh Levine that would put the final dagger in the hearts of the Illini comeback with Levine closing out a 0-6 7-6(3) 6-4 win. After the match was clinch Hiltzik was able to close out Nicolas Alvarez at #2 to make the final score 4-3 Duke.

1/31/15 Men's Live Scoring Links

Florida vs. USC (@UGA) - 10am est - Live Scoring 
East Tennessee State at Georgia Tech - 10:30am est - Live Scoring & Live Streaming 
Mercer at Auburn - 11am est - Live Scoring
Toledo at Michigan State - 12pm est - Live Scoring
Marquette vs. Virginia Tech (Lynchburg) - 1pm est - Live Scoring
UCLA at Georgia - 2pm est - Live Scoring & Blog
Florida State at Alabama - 2pm est - Live Scoring
Purdue at LSU - 2pm est - Live Scoring
Montana State at Utah - 2pm est - Live Scoring
Clemson at South Carolina - 3pm est - Live Scoring
South Florida at Pepperdine - 4pm est - Live Scoring
Texas at SMU - 5pm est - Live Scoring
UNLV at Stanford - 5pm est - Live Streaming & Scoreboard
Mercer at Auburn - 5pm est - Live Scoring
The Citadel at Georgia Tech - 5:30pm est - Live Scoring & Live Streaming
Detroit at Michigan State - 6pm est - Live Scoring
Utah State at Utah - 7pm est - Live Scoring
North Carolina at Illinois - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming

1/30/15 Men's Live Scoring Links

Chattanooga at Memphis - 12pm est - Live Scoring
Green Bay at Minnesota - 12pm est - Live Scoring
Marquette at VCU - 2pm est - Live Scoring
Rice at Mississippi State - 2pm est - Live Scoring
NC State at Middle Tennessee State - 2pm est - Live Scoring
San Francisco at Arizona - 2pm est - Live Scoring
Indiana at Vanderbilt - 3pm est - Live Scoring
UNLV at Cal - 4:30pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Iowa at Cornell - 5pm est - Iowa Twitter
Northwestern at Notre Dame - 5:30pm est - Live Scoring
Duke at Illinois - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming 
Oklahoma at Wake Forest - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Murray State at Memphis - 7pm est - Live Scoring
Alcorn State at Mississippi State - 7pm est - Live Scoring
Nebraska at Drake - 7pm est - Drake Twitter
Dartmouth at Minnesota - 7pm est - Live Scoring
Nevada at Oregon - 8pm est - Live Scoring

1/29/15 Men's Live Scoring Links

Louisiana Lafayette at Baylor - 4pm est - Live Scoring & Blog
South Florida at San Diego - 4:30pm est - South Florida Twitter
Kentucky at Ohio State - 5pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Hawaii at Washington - 6pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming

ITA Kick Off Weekend In The Books

The ITA Men's Kick-Off Weekend is in the books with 15 teams securing their spot in the February 13th-16th National Team Indoor Championships at the Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago.  Below are those 15 qualifiers along with the host institution Illinois.

#1 USC
#2 Oklahoma
#3 Virginia
#4 UCLA
#5 Ohio State
#6 Baylor
#7 North Carolina
#8 Georgia
#9 Texas
#11 Illinois
#12 Duke
#15 California
#16 Columbia
#26 Penn State
#32 Ole Miss
#37 TCU

The official draw won't be announced until Wednesday, February 11th and even though there are still several high profile matches left to be played between now and then below is what the draw would look like if they used this past week's rankings.  Some juicy match-ups:

#1 USC vs. #16 TCU
#8 Georgia vs. #9 Texas
#5 Ohio State vs. #12 California
#4 UCLA vs. #13 Columbia
#6 Baylor vs. #11 Duke
#3 Virginia vs. #14 Penn State
#7 North Carolina vs. #10 Illinois
#2 Oklahoma vs. #15 Ole Miss