The big match of the day in Gainesville had a close doubles point but once Georgia got the early lead it never looked back and ended up pulling away for a 4-1 win.
The doubles point looked like it was Florida's for the taking after the Gators #2 team of Elliott Orkin and Maxx Lipman cruised to a 6-1 win while its #1 tandem of Diego Hidalgo and Gordon Watson jumped out to a 4-2 lead. With Georgia's #3 team of Wayne Montgomery and Paul Oosterbaan also winning 6-1 the pressure would go back on Georgia's #1 team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland and the undefeated tandem wouldn't go away as they took 3 straight games to go up 5-4 and were serving for the match. There would then be 3 consecutive service breaks to send the match to a tiebreak. After falling behind 4-2 and 6-4, Georgia's Austin Smith and Ben Wagland would fight off 2 match points and eventually win the last 3 points to take the tiebreak 9-7 in a match that took 57 minutes.
In singles play Georgia would jump out to a break lead on all 6 courts and would end up taking 5 1st sets with Elliott Orkin grabbing the lone 1st set for Florida at #4. Austin Smith would be 1st off the court with a 6-1, 6-4 win at #2 and then 15 minutes later Paul Oosterbaan would close out his match with a 6-4, 6-4 win at #6 which put Georgia up 3-0. Elliott Orkin would give Florida its only point with a 7-5, 6-2 win at #4 but a short while later Nathan Pasha would clinch the victory for Georgia with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 win at #3 singles. The 2 remaining matches were tied in the 3rd set at the time of the clinch.
The doubles point looked like it was Florida's for the taking after the Gators #2 team of Elliott Orkin and Maxx Lipman cruised to a 6-1 win while its #1 tandem of Diego Hidalgo and Gordon Watson jumped out to a 4-2 lead. With Georgia's #3 team of Wayne Montgomery and Paul Oosterbaan also winning 6-1 the pressure would go back on Georgia's #1 team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland and the undefeated tandem wouldn't go away as they took 3 straight games to go up 5-4 and were serving for the match. There would then be 3 consecutive service breaks to send the match to a tiebreak. After falling behind 4-2 and 6-4, Georgia's Austin Smith and Ben Wagland would fight off 2 match points and eventually win the last 3 points to take the tiebreak 9-7 in a match that took 57 minutes.
In singles play Georgia would jump out to a break lead on all 6 courts and would end up taking 5 1st sets with Elliott Orkin grabbing the lone 1st set for Florida at #4. Austin Smith would be 1st off the court with a 6-1, 6-4 win at #2 and then 15 minutes later Paul Oosterbaan would close out his match with a 6-4, 6-4 win at #6 which put Georgia up 3-0. Elliott Orkin would give Florida its only point with a 7-5, 6-2 win at #4 but a short while later Nathan Pasha would clinch the victory for Georgia with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 win at #3 singles. The 2 remaining matches were tied in the 3rd set at the time of the clinch.
Georgia recap
Florida recap
FYI, the # beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of the current date of the recap. For more details about UTR check out their website.
#7 Georgia 4, #17 Florida 1
Singles competition
1. #17 Wayne Montgomery (UGA 14.65) vs. #46 Diego Hidalgo (UF 14.04) 6-3, 3-6, 1-1 DNF
2. #25 Austin Smith (UGA 14.12) def.. #103 Maxx Lipman (UF 13.72) 6-1, 6-4
3. #16 Nathan Pasha (UGA 14.26) def. Gordon Watson (UF 13.74) 6-2, 3-6, 6-0
4. #80 Elliott Orkin (UF 13.84) def. Nick Wood (UGA 13.69) 7-5, 6-2
5. Ben Wagland (UGA 13.26) vs. #123 Chase Perez-Blanco (UF 13.30) 6-3, 6-7(0) DNF
6. Paul Oosterbaan (UGA 13.57) def. Oliver Landert (UF 13.14) 6-4, 6-4
Doubles competition
1. #10 Wagland/Smith (UGA) def. #47 Hidalgo/Watson (UF) 7-6 (7)
2. Lipman/Orkin (UF) def. Diaz/Pasha (UGA) 6-1
3. Montgomery/Oosterbaan (UGA) def. Richard
Brej/Landert (UF) 6-1
Match Notes:
Florida 5-3; National ranking #17
Georgia 8-2; National ranking #7
Order of finish: Doubles (2, 3, 1); Singles (2, 6, 4, 3)
________________________________________________________Auburn, AL: In the SEC opener for each school, Auburn was able to grab the doubles point and then pick up 4 1st sets to put South Carolina into a hole that they just couldn't climb out of. Auburn's Oliver Plaskett provided the clincher at #6 singles with a 6-4, 7-6 win over Thomas Mayronne. The remaining match at #2 was halted with Auburn's Marko Krickovic up 5-3 in the 3rd so more than likely this would have finished 5-2 in Auburn's favor had it been played out.
Auburn recap
South Carolina recap
#28 Auburn 4, #34 South Carolina 2
Singles competition
1. Lukas Ollert (AU 14.31) def. Kyle Koch (USC 13.91) 6-2, 6-4
2. Marko Krickovic (AU 13.76) vs. Andrew Adams (USC 13.80) 6-2, 3-6,
5-3 DNF
3. Maxime Hinnisdaels (AU 13.89) def. Thiago Pinheiro (USC 13.26) 6-2,
3-6, 6-4
4. Andrew Schafer (USC 13.39) def. Dante Saleh (AU 12.93) 7-5, 6-4
5. Harrison O'Keefe (USC 13.27) def. Joseph Van Dooren (AU 12.42) 6-3,
6-4
6. Oliver Plaskett (AU 11.88) def. Thomas Mayronne (USC 13.11) 6-4, 7-6
(7-5)
Doubles competition
1. Marko Krickovic/Oliver Plaskett (AU) def. Kyle Koch/Thiago
Pinheiro (USC) 7-5
2. Lukas Ollert/Joseph Van Dooren (AU) def. Harrison
O'Keefe/Thomas Mayronne (USC) 6-4
3. Andrew Schafer/Andrew Adams (USC) def. Maxime
Hinnisdaels/Dante Saleh (AU) 6-3
Match Notes:
South Carolina 8-6 (0-1 SEC); National ranking #34
Auburn 11-2 (1-0 SEC); National ranking #28
Order of finish: Doubles (3,2,1); Singles (1,5,4,3,6)
Played indoors
Official: Chris Rodger T-3:13
________________________________________________________
Ann Arbor, MI: The Dartmouth Big Green ran its record to 7-4 on the year with a 4-3 win on the road at Michigan. Michigan was coming off a win over Memphis but couldn't duplicate the results against its Ivy League foe.
Dartmouth recap
Michigan recap
#50 Dartmouth 4, #52 Michigan 3
Singles
1. #82 Dovydas Sakinis (DART 13.61) def. Alex Petrone
(U-M 13.59), 6-2, 6-4
2. #112 Michael Zhu (U-M 12.69) def. #108 Chris
Kipouras (DART 13.22), 6-4, 6-3
3. Runhao Hua (U-M 13.44) def. Ciro Riccardi (DART 13.11), 6-4, 6-7 (6), 10-4
4. Alex Knight (U-M 12.99) def. Diego Pedraza (DART 12.88), 7-6
(4), 6-2
5. Brendan Tannenbaum (DART 12.89) def. Davis Crocker (U-M 12.15), 6-4,
6-4
6. Max Schmidt (DART 12.68) def. Carter Lin (U-M 13.09), 6-3, 2-6,
6-1
Doubles
1. #18 Dovydas Sakinis/Chris Kipouras (DART) def.
Alex Petrone/Michael Zhu (U-M), 6-4
2. Runhao Hua/Alex Knight (U-M) vs. Brendan
Tannenbaum/Max Schmidt (DART), 5-5 (DNF)
3. Sam Todd/Diego Pedraza (DART) def. Davis
Crocker/Tyler Gardiner (U-M), 6-2
Order of Completion: Doubles 3-1, Singles 1-2-5-4-6-3
______________________________________________________
FRIDAY PREVIEW:
The owners of 38 NCAA Division 1 Men's Team National Championships will meet on Friday afternoon in Los Angeles as the #1 USC Trojans host the #37 Stanford Cardinal.
USC's media guide shows they lead the all-time series 109-76 with the 1st match played in 1925 while Stanford's shows USC leads it 63-59 with the 1st match coming in 1967. I'd have to go with USC's as the more accurate source since I know Stanford was playing tennis long before 1967. Stanford has won 17 NCAA Championships with the last coming in 2000 while USC has won 21 NCAA Championships including 5 of the last 6.
USC has won 8 straight in the series with Stanford's last win over SC coming back in 2011 at the National Indoors. This USC team is full of experience with the top 4 spots in the singles lineup occupied by seniors along with a junior and a sophomore at 5 and 6. Stanford on the other hand is starting 3 freshmen, a senior, and 2 juniors.
Let's breakdown the individual match-ups and see if Stanford has any shot at getting close to 4 points against the #1 Trojans.
Stanford freshman #26 Tom Fawcett has turned some heads so far this year with his stellar play which includes 3 wins over top 60 opponents and he is currently the 3rd highest ranked freshman in the latest rankings behind only Duke's #8 Nicolas Alvarez and Georgia's #17 Wayne Montgomery. USC senior Yannick Hanfmann just seems to keep plugging along with 11 of his 13 wins over ranked opponents with 8 of those 11 over top 50 opponents. Both of these guys are undefeated in dual match play so somebody has to lose - I'll take experience over youth.
Stanford's David Wilczynski has done something you don't see too often - he has played at every spot in the singles lineup after starting the year at 6 and has since played at 5, 4, 3, 2, and this past Tuesday against Hawaii he played at 1 so that's 6 different positions in 7 matches. The reason for the upward slide has been strictly performance based as all his dual match wins have been blowouts with the lone loss coming in 3 sets to Cal's Filip Bergevi. One item to note is that while the wins have been impressive only 1 has been over a ranked opponent (#123 Perez-Blanco). Wilczynski's opponent will be #20 Roberto Quiroz who already has 7 wins over ranked opponents and 5 of those over top 50 opponents. Quiroz is just too seasoned for the Cardinal freshman and will take this one in 2.
Stanford's John Morrissey spent the last 2 years playing atop the Cardinal singles lineup but has been pushed down to #3 after a slow start to the year in conjunction with the strong play of both Fawcett and Wilczynski. Wang had another great fall with 4 ranked wins but has dropped 3 of his last 4 though all 3 losses have been against top 80 opponents. I give Morrissey a decent chance in this one but I think Wang pulls it out in 3.
USC's Eric Johnson had a fairly substandard fall but the light switch flipped on at the start of the dual match season as Johnson has now won 8 of 9 including 6 straight with the last 5 in straight sets against some tough competition. Stanford's Maciek Romanowicz really came out of the gate slow dropping 5 of 8 then he dropped his 1st 3 dual matches before pulling off an improbable comeback from 2-5 down in the 3rd last Saturday against Cal's J.T. Nishimura. It wouldn't surprise me if Johnson was moved up to 3 and Wang dropped to 4 but if Johnson plays at 4 he takes this one in straights.
Stanford's David Hsu had a strong fall going 8-2 but since the 1st of the year he's just 2-4. USC's Max De Vroome has had an awkward start to the spring with just 4 of 8 matches reaching a conclusion with the last one to finish being De Vroome's lone loss to Oklahoma's Alex Ghilea. If the Hsu from the fall was playing this match I'd take him in 3, but he doesn't seem 100% right now so I'll take the big Dutchman in 2.
USC's Nick Crystal has been on fire this year going undefeated in dual match play along with a stout 11-3 record in the individual portion of the season that included wins over Tom Fawcett, Andre Goransson, Max De Vroome, and his potential Stanford opponent Nolan Paige. Paige has won 4 straight after dropping his 1st 2 dual matches however those 4 opponents have been unranked. I'll go with Crystal in 2.
Stanford has an improved team but they're a year away from taking out a team like USC. Prediction: USC 6-1
#37 Stanford (6-2) at #1 USC (9-1) - 4pm eastern - USC Streaming & Pac 12 Net Coverage begins at 5:30
Projected Lineups with UTRs (as of 2/26) after the school abbreviation:
Singles:
1. #26 Tom Fawcett (ST 14.14 - 6-0/18-4) vs. #6 Yannick Hanfmann (USC 15.05 - 7-0/13-2)
2. David Wilczynski (ST 13.86 - 6-1/15-6) vs. #20 Roberto Quiroz (USC 14.44 - 5-1/13-3)
3. John Morrissey (ST 14.10 - 5-2/7-5) vs. #31 Jonny Wang (USC 14.23 - 2-3/13-7)
4. Maciek Romanowicz (ST 13.31 4-3/6-8) vs. Eric Johnson (USC 13.97 - 8-1/12-7)
5. David Hsu (ST 13.95 - 2-2/10-6) vs. #72 Max De Vroome (USC 14.14 - 3-1/13-5)
6. Nolan Paige (ST 13.32 - 5-2/16-8) vs. #45 Nick Crystal (USC 13.93 - 7-0/18-3)
Doubles:
1. Morrissey/Stineman (ST 3-2) vs. #2 Hanfmann/Quiroz (USC 5-2/13-3)
2. #49 Romanowicz/Fawcett (ST 5-1/9-1) vs. #30 Johnson/De Vroome (USC 6-0)
3. Paige/Wilczynski (ST 2-1) vs. Crystal/Connor Farren (USC 2-2/7-2)
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