3/31 ITA Rankings Have Been Released - Top 10 Breakdown

Oklahoma stays at #1 in the ITA Men's rankings for the 5th week in a row and for the 6th time in the last 7 weeks. The top 4 in the Women's rankings stays the same with Georgia and Florida swapping spots at 5 and 6.

Below I'll breakdown the Top 10 on the men's side looking at the 7 best wins that were used in the rankings this week along with other quality ranked wins that could potentially fit in down the road.  You'll notice some of the quality wins are ranked higher than a top 7 win and that is because I used the new ranking so that you can see what changes will be made next week.  

Oklahoma would have retained its #1 ranking whether they played or not last week but they increased their margin after knocking off a pair of top 10 teams in TCU and Texas last week.  

• 7 Best Wins: #2 Baylor (2x), #4 Virginia, #7 USC, #9 Texas, #10 TCU, at #11 Ohio State
• Other Quality Wins: at #12 Wake Forest, #14 Ole Miss, #19 North Carolina (2X), #22 South Florida, #24 Northwestern
• Losses: #8 Texas A&M
• What's Coming Up: #20 Tulsa (4/1), at #2 Baylor (4/10), at #21 Texas Tech (4/12), #30 Oklahoma State (4/19)
• Comments:  Would be hard to see them NOT staying #1 all the way through the regular season. 

3/31 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma is still on top as expected and has widened its margin to a 8.5 points over #2 Baylor thanks to a pair of top 10 wins last weekend over Texas and TCU.  This week's rankings use each team's top 7 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 8 and then the week after that it'll be at 9 and stay there until the end of the regular season. 

Viriginia makes the biggest jump inside the top 20 from 8 to 4 thanks to wins over North Carolina and Duke. Mississippi State should have the largest jump inside the top 40 as I see them coming up 8 spots from 34 to 26. Tulsa should also make a nice push jumping 7 spots from 27 to 20 after winning on the road at South Florida on Sunday.

Oklahoma State will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 8 spots from 22 to 30 after dropping a pair last week to Texas and TCU.  

Sunday Recap: Illinois, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M All Win Big

It was expected to be a dynamite day with 4 matches taking place between top 15 teams but in the end we got 4 lopsided matches with 3 of the 4 wrapped up in under 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Illinois put an end to Ohio State's 97 match regular season Big 10 winning streak with a 4-0 win.  The Illini surprised many by taking the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 doubles.  Illinois' #2 team of Aron Hiltzik and Ross Guignon got a break to start the match and never looked and rolled to an 8-5 win.  Below is match point which includes a swing and miss by Diaz.

The Illinois' #3 team of Farris Gosea and Aleks Vukic fell behind 3-1 before taking the next 5 games to go up 6-3.  A couple of service hold later and Illinois had the doubles point.

Sunday Preview: Ohio St/ILL, UVA/Duke, TX/OU, Ole Miss/aTm + Sunday Storylines

Sunday should be a fabulous day of tennis with 4 matches taking place between top 15 teams with Champaign, Charlottesville, College Station, and Norman the hot places to be.  3 of the 4 will take place outdoors with only the Ohio State/Illinois match likely headed indoors due to crummy weather.

I see at least 1 lower ranked team winning but I definitely wouldn't call it an upset. Check out the stats and projected lineups and see if you can figure out who wins each match.

#11 Ohio State (16-6) at #3 Illinois (16-3) - 1pm est - This will be the 2nd meeting of the year between these two with Illinois taking the first one 4-2 in the consolation draw at the National Indoors back in February.  This match is all but guaranteed to be played indoors due to Sunday's forecast of rain, high winds, and cooler temps.  Both teams are coming off nice wins with Illinois beating Penn State 6-1 and Ohio State winning at Northwestern 5-2.  Ohio State is 18-4 in doubles while Illinois is 10-9 so you've got to like the Buckeyes to take the early lead.  The top 3 singles matches should be repeats from February while the bottom 3 will be different.   Below is the box score from the 1st meeting and further down below we'll look at the singles match-ups.

Saturday Recap: Step On Back - The Pack Attacked

Going into today's match against #12 Wake Forest, NC State had played in 11 matches that finished with a 4-3 score with the Pack on the losing end in 7 of those 11 matches.  It was just last weekend that NC State had #16 Virginia Tech on the ropes but the Pack couldn't slam the door shut and watched as the Hokies #5 rallied from 5-2 down in the 3rd to win.

Today NC State finally broke through as they upset Wake Forest 4-3.  The Wolfpack took the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 and then picked up singles wins from Simon Norenius, Austin Powell, and Beck Bond at 2, 3, and 4 to seal the deal.  The match was played indoors at NC State's 4-court indoor facility so the matches at 5 and 6 didn't go on until a court opened up.  Both were played out after the clinch with Wake winning both.

Saturday Storylines

There aren't any top 20 match-ups on the schedule today but there are a few that should be good.

#60 Dartmouth plays its 5th match in the last 7 days against #32 Florida State.  Will the Big Green have enough left to challenge the Noles or does FSU lean on them and push them back on the their way to Hanover?

#12 Wake Forest goes to Raleigh to face #38 NC State - the Wolfpack has lost 3 straight and 4 of the last 5 matches by a 4-3 score.  Is today the day the Pack has the 4 in front of its name or does Wake take it to them?

#20 Florida goes to the plains to face #45 Auburn - does Auburn have enough depth to challenge the Gators or will Florida roll them 4-0?

Friday Recap: Oklahoma Holds Off TCU, Virginia Too Good For UNC, UGA Over Vandy, Ohio State Too Much for NW

Oklahoma got pushed by TCU in singles but ultimately the Sooners had too much depth and outlasted TCU 4-1.  After OU took the doubles point they picked up 4 1st sets and ended up getting wins from Andrew Harris, Alex Ghilea, and Spencer Papa at 1, 4, and 5.  TCU's lone point came from freshman Guillermo Nunez as he hammered Dane Webb 6-3, 6-2 at #3.  The 2 remaining matches were abandoned with each early in the 3rd set.  

Oklahoma recap

“It was a good match,” head coach John Roddick said. “TCU played very well and they played hard.  We got a pretty good lead on them and they forced us into third sets. Our guys competed well. Doubles was a lot better. We are really coming around there. All in all it’s a good day.”

Head Coach John Roddick

“Spencer did a great job getting off the court in straight sets like that,” Roddick said. “I won’t say that it was easy but he did a great job of taking care of business and getting us a 2-1 lead. That really put us in a good spot because we had other first sets. That gives them very little wiggle room and that was probably the biggest key to winning today.”

“I think we were in good position on two courts and I’ll never doubt Axel until he loses the last point,” Roddick said. “We have been good at putting teams in position where they have very little margin for error. When you do that you will come out on top more often than not. We don’t have a clock so you have to close them out and our guys did that.”

Friday Preview: UNC/UVA, VU/UGA, Ohio St/NW, TCU/OU + Other Storylines

While some conferences are already half way through their schedules others are just beginning. Both the Big 12 and Pac 12 kickoff conference play on Friday while the ACC, SEC, and Big 10 are nearing or have already passed its half way point.  Below are the 4 biggest matches of the day so make sure you keep an eye on these.


#14 North Carolina (14-6) at #8 Virginia (12-3) - 3pm est - North Carolina's biggest problem this year has been fielding a healthy starting 6 and there's a chance that its best 6 players may be on the court on Friday.  UNC's #1 Brayden Schnur has now missed the last 5 matches but the Tar Heels hope that he'll be able to go on Friday. Virginia has battled some injuries as well but they still haven't missed a beat in conference play with its current ACC winning streak at 129.  UNC is 15-5 in doubles while Virginia is 13-2.  These teams met earlier this year in Chicago, in the consolation draw, at the National Indoors with Virginia cruising to a 4-0 win.  This one might be a little closer but Virginia will still win comfortably. I like UVA in doubles and see singles wins from Frank, Shane, Altamirano, Kwiatkowski, and Aragone.  Prediction: Virginia 6-1

When A Win Isn't A Win

We are coming up one the 1 year anniversary of one of the odder things that has happened in college tennis in the last several years.

Last year on March 28th, Illinois and Penn State played an exhausting dual match in State College that lasted just under 6 hours (4 indoor courts) and ended with the Illini coming out on top thanks to Julian Childers coming back from a set down to win in 3. After the match each coach praised the other team and talked about how great a match it was - I mean why wouldn't they after spending almost 6 hours together.

So why is all this so strange?  It's strange because 5 days later the Big 10 overturned the decision due to a Penn State protest based off Illinois playing it's highest ranked player, Jared Hiltzik, at #1 singles. Hiltzik had been out of action for 6 weeks recovering from an injury and was soundly beaten by Leonard Stakhovsky in his return to the court.  The Big 10 coaches felt that playing a less than 100% Hiltzik at #1 was a line-up stack giving the Illini a better chance at each of the remaining courts.  The coaches felt that Hiltzik should have played at 2 with Farris Gosea at 1.

UPDATE: After writing this I found out some more details that I wanted to share. The Big 10, like several other conferences, requires the coaches to submit their lineups early in the week for the upcoming matches and after the submission there is a challenge process.  It was during the challenge process, several days before the match, that the other Big 10 coaches voted down the Illinois lineup and made them change it to show Gosea at 1 and Hiltzik at 2.  Despite having its originally submitted lineup struck down, Illinois decided to use it anyway on principal (as stated at the bottom) and that's why the protest was made and followed through on.  Even if Penn State hadn't protested the result it could have been challenged by any other coach in the conference.  I still don't necessarily agree with it but now I fully understand it and can respect the decision made by the Big 10.   The statement at the very bottom from April 2 alluded to the protest but I originally read it to mean the lineup was protested after the fact when in reality it was protested during the challenge process days before the match was played. 

Wednesday Recap: Rice Hoots & Hollers Past Northwestern, Mississippi State Is The King Of The Magnolia State

Wednesday was a rough day to be a top 20 team on the road as both #13 Ole Miss and #19 Northwestern got upset.

In Houston, Rice picked up its 1st win over a top 20 opponent since 2009 when the Owls stunned Northwestern 4-1.  Rice took the doubles and then picked up singles wins from Srikar Alla, Max Andrews and David Warren at 1, 2, and 5.  Northwestern's Logan Staggs won at #4 singles in a losing effort and Konrad Zieba made his season debut at #3 singles for the Cats and led when the match was halted.

What's Coming Up

All the spring break tournaments are wrapped up and now its time for everybody to get into the meat of their conference schedules.   Below are some of the matches that I'll be keeping an eye on - the ones in bold are the ones I plan on previewing.

3/25 (Wednesday)

#13 Ole Miss at #34 Mississippi State - 4pm est/3pm cst

3/27 (Friday)

#14 North Carolina at #8 Virginia

#11 Ohio State at #19 Northwestern

#10 TCU at #1 Oklahoma

#7 Texas at #22 Oklahoma State

#17 Vanderbilt at #5 Georgia

Tuesday Recap: Dartmouth knocks off SMU & Pepperdine beats Washington

#36 SMU opened up its new outdoor facility tonight but #60 Dartmouth spoiled the party with a 4-1 upset win.  The Big Green was playing the middle match of a 5 game road trip and after losing to both TCU and Oklahoma State it definitely was a welcome win.

Dartmouth came out and won a tight doubles point by winning 7-5 at both 1 and 3 while SMU took #2 doubles 6-4.  In singles, Dartmouth took the opening set on 5 of 6 courts and was able to pick up wins from Brendan Tannenbaum, Dovydas Sakinis, and Ciro Riccardi.  At the time of the clinch Dartmouth's Max Schmidt was a game away up 5-2 in the 3rd.

3/24 ITA Rankings Have Been Released - Top 10 Breakdown

Oklahoma stays at #1 in the ITA Men's rankings for the 4th week in a row and for the 5th time in the last 6 weeks.   The USC women are the new #1 in the Women's rankings for the 1st time since 2003 after defeating both Cal and Stanford last weekend.   

Below I'll breakdown the Top 10 on the men's side looking at the 6 best wins that were used in the rankings this week along with other quality ranked wins that could potentially fit in down the road.  You'll notice some of the quality wins are ranked higher than a top 6 win and that is because I used the new ranking so that you can see what changes will be made next week.  

Oklahoma retained its #1 ranking after beating Columbia and Baylor last weekend at the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge in Indian Wells.  

• 6 Best Wins: #2 Baylor (2x), #6 USC, #8 Virginia, at #11 Ohio State, at #12 Wake Forest
• Other Quality Wins: #13 Ole Miss, #14 North Carolina (2X), #18 South Florida, #19 Northwestern
• Losses: #9 Texas A&M
• What's Coming Up: #10 TCU (3/27), #7 Texas (3/29), #27 Tulsa (4/1)
• Comments:  Well positioned to stay at #1 for some time with a great resume plus they get a chance to add not 1 but 2 more top 10 wins this weekend.   

Monday Recap: Bruins over Runnin' Rebs, Mustangs Over Broncos, Tigers Beat the Jags, Stanford Plays a Match

Typically Mondays only have 1 or 2 matches but there were a handful of decent ones on the slate today with Cal Poly going into Boise and winning, Memphis winning at South Alabama, and UCLA getting a slightly tougher than expected win over UNLV.

UCLA won the battle of the abbreviations with a 6-1 win over UNLV.  UCLA was a little shorthanded with 2 of its top 3 players out of the doubles lineup with Mackenzie McDonald (14.91) and Martin Redlicki both participating in a Futures event in Calabasas this week.  After UCLA dropped the doubles point things were actually looking a little concerning but fortunately Redlicki was able to make it back in time to play in singles because otherwise the Bruins would have had to slide everyone except Mkrtchian up 2 spots in the lineup which could have spelled trouble for UCLA. In all seriousness UCLA probably still would have won no worse than 5-2 even without Redlicki.

3/24 ITA Rankings Preview

The gap at the top has widened as Oklahoma continues to add more and more top 10 wins.  Oklahoma now has 10 wins over teams in the Top 14 - that's a crazy figure and will likely keep OU at the top for a while. This week's rankings use each team's top 6 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 7 and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

TCU will make the biggest jump within the top 20 as the Horned Frogs move up 8 spots from 18 to 10 after beating #2 Illinois on Monday and then defeating #48 Dartmouth on Saturday.  San Diego makes the biggest jump in the top 40 as it'll rise 9 spots from 30 to 21 on the strength of wins last weekend over #32 Princeton, #33 Drake, and #43 Denver.

Harvard will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 11 spots from 22 to 33 after losing to both Drake and Princeton out in San Diego.

Sunday Recap: Sooners Come Up Big Again, Ole Miss Rolls, Duke Scraps Past Wake, Hokies Charge Back

After struggling in doubles most of the year, Oklahoma came up big in the finals of the BNP Paribas Collegiate Cup and handed Baylor its first doubles loss of the year and ultimately its 3rd overall loss as the Sooners beat Baylor 4-2.  The Oklahoma win was the second over Baylor in the last 5 weeks and they'll meet up against in Waco on April 10th.

Baylor's #2 team of Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano won easily 6-2 but Oklahoma would win the other 2 courts 6-4 with Dane Webb and Axel Alvarez getting it done on 1 and Spencer Papa and Florin Bragusi winning on 3.  It was the first win of the year for the Papa/Bragusi pairing and it couldn't have come at a better time.

Each team would take 3 1st sets but with Baylor needing 4 singles wins they would need to close out their 3 and turn 1 more - OU wouldn't let it happen.  Axel Alvarez put OU up 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-2 shellacking over Tony Lupieri at #2 and Alex Ghilea would make it 3-0 with an equally dominant 6-2 6-3 win over Vince Schneider at #4.  Julian Lenz would get Baylor on the board with a 6-3, 6-2 win at #1 over Andrew Harris and Mate Zsiga was just 2 games away from winning at #5. However, Oklahoma's Florin Bragusi would put an end to any doubt and clinch the win and title by defeating Felipe Rios 7-5, 6-4 at #6 and thus snap Rios's 10-match winning streak.

Getting the doubles point was huge for Oklahoma because even though they've come back before after dropping it this was a red-hot Baylor team they were facing.  If Baylor takes that opening point then it would have come down to a 3rd set at #3.  Of course you can play the IF game all day; bottom line is Oklahoma keeps on winning and keeps performing when it matters that most.

Sunday Preview: Oklahoma/Baylor, Wake/Duke, Ole Miss/Florida + other storylines

Sunday brings us 3 matches between Top 15 teams with the headliner taking place in Indian Wells between #1 Oklahoma and #3 Baylor.  The other 2 big ones are in Oxford where #13 Ole Miss hosts #15 Florida and in Durham where #6 Duke hosts #12 Wake Forest.  It should also be mentioned that all 3 are rematches from earlier in the year with 2 playing each other during the Kickoff Weekend and the other meeting at the National Indoors.  There's a full schedule at the bottom of this post with scoring links as well.

#1 Oklahoma (16-1) vs. #3 Baylor (14-2) - 1pm est/10am pst - This will be a rematch from the National Indoor Semifinals which was a match Oklahoma won 4-2 (box score below).  Baylor had its chances in the match and had Mate Zsiga not let a 6-4, 5-2 lead slip away at #5 singles the outcome could have been different.  The only singles court which projects to be a rematch is at #1 singles and that was the only court that didn't finish last time.  Baylor has been far and away the better team in doubles so the Bears will look to get that early 1-0 lead like they have in every match that the doubles point has been played.  Oklahoma will look to lean on its top 3 in singles as they have all year while Baylor hopes its bottom 3 continues its recent dominance.  Let's take a look at the lineups and records. 

Bears Sic 'Em, Oklahoma Rallies Past Columbia, Toreros Hold Off Drake, Vandy Survives

Saturday had several close ones with both Baylor and Oklahoma pulling through in the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge while San Diego and Princeton both won tight ones in the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic.   There was also a good one in Nashville where Vanderbilt won a 3rd set tiebreak in the deciding match to avoid getting upset by unranked Kentucky.

The headliner of the day was between #3 Baylor and #4 USC.  It was almost a forgone conclusion that Baylor would take the doubles point with how dominant they'd been in doubles play but USC had the point well within grasp.  Baylor's #3 duo of Vince Schneider and Felipe Rios were first off the court with 6-3 win but USC's #1 pair of Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz answered with a 6-4 win.  So it all came down to #2 doubles where Baylor's Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano had jumped out to an early break lead on USC's Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson.  USC's 2s would break back to even it at 4 then get a De Vroome hold to go up 5-4 and then would go up 0-30 on the Galeano serve.  The Baylor 2s would win 4 straight points to hold for 5-5 but then Eric Johnson would hold at 40-15 to put USC up 6-5.  For the second service game in a row Baylor would go down 0-30 but they'd dig themselves out again by winning 3 straight points to go up 40-30.  After USC got the next point to make it 40-40, which was a deciding/break point, Lenz dropped the hammer on a 1st serve and sent to a tiebreak.  The tiebreak was all Baylor as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead and ended up cruising to a 7-1 win.

Saturday Preview: USC/Baylor + Other Storylines

What a great day it'd be to be out in Indian Wells with 4 college matches going on highlighted by USC/Baylor plus you've got Djokovic/Murray and Federer/Raonic - high quality viewing.

The Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic wraps up today with San Diego and Drake meeting in the finals plus they'll be a good 3rd place match between Ivy League powers Harvard and Princeton.  Can Drake make it 3 wins in 3 days playing San Diego in the Toreros own backyard?

TCU hosts a pair of lower ranked teams with both Dartmouth and UT Arlington coming in though of course it's not that far for UT Arlington.  Any chance TCU gets caught napping and drops 1?

Kentucky is still looking for its first conference win of the season after some near misses against Georgia (2-4), Tennessee (3-4), and South Carolina (1-4).  Will Vanderbilt be able to follow up its win over Tennessee with another win over Big Blue?

Oklahoma takes on Columbia though you figure OU has to have its eyes set on either USC or Baylor. Will the Lions catch Oklahoma off-guard and pull off a surprise?

Now for the big one - Baylor/USC.  Both teams are playing well though Baylor is definitely playing a little better right now.  Can Baylor keep it up or does USC show that it's not one to be forgotten about?  Let's dive in and take a look at all the #s.  As a reminder in the singles matches the UTRs are after the school abbreviation.

Friday Recap: Wake Too Good for VT, USC Gets Its Revenge, The Ville Rocks UNC, Several 4-3 Nailbiters

Friday brought us several close ones as 6 matches finished with a 4-3 final score though of course there were several that weren't as close most notably 3 of the 4 in Indian Wells.  

The big upset of the day came in Louisville as the #29 Cardinals stunned #10 North Carolina 5-2.  It looked like #7 Texas A&M might get picked off too however the Aggies rallied late and held off #35 Mississippi State 4-1.  #33 Drake came back from 3-0 down to stun #22 Harvard 4-3 and #23 LSU pulled out a tight 4-3 win on the road at #60 Alabama.

In the biggest match of the day #12 Wake Forest ran its winning streak to 4 with a 5-2 win over #16 Virginia Tech.  The Demon Deacons cruised past Va Tech in doubles and then Noah Rubin made it 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 beat down of Amerigo Contini at #1 singles.  Jon Ho would extend the lead to 3-0 with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #4 singles over Hunter Koontz before Virginia Tech's Edoardo Tessaro would put the Hokies on the board with a come from behind 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Christian Seraphim at #5 singles. Romain Bogaerts would clinch the win for Wake Forest with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win at #2 singles over Andreas Bjerrehus and then the teams would split the 2 remaining matches after the clinch.  

Wake Forest now sets its sights on #6 Duke with Wake making the short trip to Durham on Sunday.

Friday Preview - Va Tech at Wake, USC vs. Tulsa, + Other Storylines

As the excitement of the NCAA Basketball Tournament sweeps the nation I'm sure we'll see some excitement on the tennis courts this weekend as well.  Wake Forest hosts Virginia Tech in a top 16 showdown, 6 top 30 teams will be in Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge, and 7 top 50 teams are in San Diego for the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Classic.  If you can't make it out in person follow along with the live scoring/update links down below.

It appears they have live streaming on 2 of the courts at Indian Wells - click here for those streams.


#16 Virginia Tech (12-1) at #12 Wake Forest (11-4) - 4pm est - Virginia Tech has been the biggest surprise of the season so far winning 12 of 13 but they'll have to leave the comforts of home for just the 4th time this year.  Wake Forest is on a roll as of late having won 3 straight 7-0 matches with the last 2 coming against a pair of top 30 teams (Florida St & Louisville).  Wake is 11-4 in doubles but has only won once when dropping the point (Clemson); conversely they've only lost once when winning the doubles point (Texas).  Virginia Tech is 8-5 in doubles and has come back to win 4 times after dropping the point (Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame, Duke).

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Projected Singles Lineups
1.  #55 Amerigo Contini (VT 14.42) vs. #63 Noah Rubin (WF 14.80)
2.  #40 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT 13.81) vs. #12 Romain Bogaerts (WF 14.40)
3.  #98 Joao Monteiro (VT 13.85) vs. #69 Jonathan Ho (WF 13.56)
4.  Hunter Koontz (VT 13.62) vs. Skander Mansouri (WF 13.30)
5.  Edoardo Tessaro (VT 13.04) vs. Christian Seraphim (WF 13.74)
6.  Florian Nicoud (VT 13.38) vs. Maksim Kan (WF 13.28)

Projected Doubles Lineups
1. #64 Contini/Bjerrehus (VT) vs. #13 Seraphim/Mansouri (WF)
2. Monteiro/Tessaro (VT) vs. Rubin/Ho (WF)
3. Koontz/Nicoud (VT) vs. Keivon Tabrizi/Bogaerts (WF)

Thursday Recap: Vandy Owns The Volunteer State + Full Day of Action in San Diego

Vanderbilt ran its record to 4-0 against teams from the state of Tennessee with an impressive 4-1 win over #40 Tennessee.  The Vols took the doubles point but Vandy took 5 opening sets and ended up getting wins from Gonzales Austin, Danny Valent, Baker Newman, and Suresh Eswaran.

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#17 Vanderbilt 4, #40 Tennessee 1

Singles

1. #10 Gonzales Austin (VU 14.40) def. #14 Mikelis Libietis (UT 14.23) 6-4, 6-2

2. Hunter Reese (UT 13.28) vs. Rhys Johnson (VU 13.45) 5-7, 6-1, 2-3 unf.

3. Danny Valent (VU 13.75) def. Jack Schipanski (UT 13.13) 6-2, 6-0

4. Luis Valero (UT 13.24) vs. Kris Yee (VU 13.58) 7-6 (6), 4-6, 2-0

5. Baker Newman  (VU 12.87) def. Igor Smelyanski (UT 13.43) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4

6. Suresh Eswaran (VU 12.89) def. Brandon Fickey (UT 12.10) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles

1. #2 Reese/Libietis, UT, def. #1 Austin/Johnson, VU, 6-2

2. Dromsky/Smelyanski, UT, def. Newman/Binet, VU, 7-5

3. Schipanski/Valero, UT, vs. Eswaran/Smith, VU, 6-6 unf.

Order of Finish: Doubles (1,2); Singles (6,2,1,5).

Wednesday Recap: Bulls Ground The Gophers & Cowboys Rally Past The Mustangs

The top 25 showdown between South Florida and Minnesota may have finished 4-3 but it wasn't that close as South Florida cruised to the doubles point and then picked up 4 opening sets and ended up sweeping the top 3 courts.  Roberto Cid provided the clincher at #1 singles winning the 3rd set 6-1 then after the clinch the 2 remaining matches played 10 point supertiebreaks in lieu of a 3rd set.

USF recap

“[Minnesota] has a very good team in doubles and we have a very strong team in doubles, so we knew that would be a huge point,” said head coach Matt Hill. “The guys played really well today, especially at No. 1 and No. 3, so that gave us a lot of confidence moving into the singles.”

Minnesota recap

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 14th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#21 South Florida 4, #25 Minnesota 3

Mar 18, 2015 at Tampa, Fla. (USF Varsity Tennis Courts)

Singles competition

1. #21 Roberto Cid (USF 14.19) def. #25 Leandro Toledo (MINN 14.01) 6-3, 4-6, 6-1

2. Sasha Gozun (USF 13.39) def. Jack Hamburg (MINN 13.07) 6-3, 7-6(5)

3. Oliver Pramming (USF 13.32) def. Ruben Weber (MINN 13.27) 6-2, 6-4

4. Matic Spec (MINN 13.78) def. Igna. Gonzalez-Muniz (USF 13.09) 7-5, 6-3

5. Felix Corwin (MINN 13.58) def. Justin Roberts (USF 13.03) 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 1-0(5)

6. Mathieu Froment (MINN 12.84) def. Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF 13.21) 7-6(5), 4-6, 1-0(5)

Doubles competition

1. #37 Oliver Pramming/Justin Roberts (USF) def. #66 Mathieu Froment/Jack Hamburg (MINN) 6-2

2. Sasha Gozun/Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF) vs. #80 Felix Corwin/Leandro Toledo (MINN) 4-5, unf

3. Roberto Cid/Igna. Gonzalez-Muniz (USF) def. Eric Frueh/Matic Spec (MINN) 6-2

Match Notes

Minnesota 10-5 (1-0 Big Ten); National ranking #25

South Florida 13-4 (1-0 AAC); National ranking #21

Order of finish: Doubles (3,1); Singles (3,4,2,1,5,6)

_______________________________________________________

What's Coming Up

There are 2 big tournaments that get started over the next 2 days with both in the state of California.

The higher profile one is in Indian Wells where 3 of the top 4 teams in the country will be in action at the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge.  Play starts on Friday and finishes on Sunday.  

Current ITA Rankings of Participants: #1 Oklahoma, #3 Baylor, #4 USC, #20 Tulsa, #28 California, #29 Columbia, and both BYU and Purdue are unranked.

Longhorns Roast the Buckeyes & Red Raiders Take The Luck Out Of The Irish, LMU Upsets Utah

After dropping a 4-3 thriller to Ohio State earlier in the year at the National Indoors, Texas reversed its fortune today and took out #11 Ohio State 4-1 in a match that the Horns seemed in control of just about the entire way.  Ohio State was 15-3 in doubles coming into this one but Texas got the point by winning at 2 and 3 by scores of 6-4 and 6-2.

With the nearly unbeatable Soren Hess-Olesen at 1, Texas knew it had at least 1 point in the bag and Soren quickly delivered that point with his 17th consecutive win with a 6-1, 6-3 thrashing of Chris Diaz.  The Buckeye junior had one opening in the match after going up 2-0 in the 2nd but Hess-Olesen came back and won 6 of the next 7 games to close it out.

Ralf Steinbach would get Ohio State on the board at #5 singles with a 7-6(4), 6-1 over Nick Naumann.  Naumann had 3 chances to take the opening set when Steinbach served at 5-6, 15-40 but Steinbach forced his way to the net on each of the 3 points and managed to put 2 away with Naumann going long on a lob on the other.  In the 1st set tiebreak after Steinbach got the early mini-break to go up 1-0, Naumann got overruled on a Steinbach serve, which happened right in front of the chair, and Naumann never really seemed to recover.

3/17 ITA Rankings Have Been Released

Oklahoma stays at #1 in the ITA rankings for the 3rd week in a row and for the 4th time in the last 5 weeks.  OU's win last Tuesday over Virginia kept it atop the rankings because had they lost Illinois would have moved to #1.  Oklahoma's top 5 best wins are over #3 Baylor, #4 USC, #9 Virginia, #10 North Carolina, and at #11 Ohio State. The Sooners also own wins over #12 Wake Forest, #13 Ole Miss, #14 Northwestern, plus a 2nd win over #10 North Carolina so that means they have wins over everyone ranked from 9-14 which means they are positioned very well for the next several rankings where an additional best win is added each week starting next week. Oklahoma also gets an opportunity to pad its resume this weekend when they head to Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge and it's likely that they'll face either #3 Baylor or #4 USC in the Championship on Sunday.

Illinois moves up 2 spots to #2 on the strength of a pair of Top 10 road wins last weekend over Texas and Texas A&M.  The Illini's best 5 wins for this week are the road wins at #3 Baylor, #8 Texas, and #7 Texas A&M along with home/neutral court wins over #10 North Carolina and #11 Ohio State. Illinois dropped its match yesterday to #18 TCU so that loss will count against them next week and with Illinois now idle until March 27th that means it's points average will probably drop slightly with its 6th best against #14 Northwestern.

TCU Derails the Illini Train

In terms of rankings today's TCU win over Illinois was an upset, but I don't think too many would call it completely unexpected with Illinois playing its 3rd Top 20 opponent on the road in as many days.  I'm guessing the Illini's energy tank was much closer to E than it was to F while TCU was likely beyond ecstatic having the chance to host a top 5 team on its home courts.

TCU did play on Sunday against Michigan and while the score-lines today were a little closer they really wasn't much of a difference.  They are both listed below so you can take a look at them.

TCU took the doubles point without too much resistance by winning 6-3 and 6-1 at 1 and 2.  In singles, TCU moved Cameron Norrie down to #3 for the 1st time this year after he'd played all but 1 match at #1.  David Roditi also moved Guillermo Nunez up to #2 for the 1st time in his career and Nunez rewarded the coach's decision with a 6-2, 6-0 thrashing of #32 Tim Kopinski.  Arnau Dachs and Facundo Lugones would also pick up quick wins at 5 and 6 and in under 1 hour and 45 minutes TCU had its 4-0 shutout over Illinois.

3/17 ITA Rankings Preview

Definitely going to be some big movement in the rankings this week with several teams picking up keys wins while some took some rough losses.  This week's rankings are the last set to use each team's top 5 best wins and then starting next week with the March 24th rankings they'll use each team's 6 best wins and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

Wake Forest will have the biggest jump within the top 20 as the Demon Deacons will move up from 19 to 12 on the strength of a pair of wins over Florida State and Louisville.  Tulsa also makes a big move from 29 to 20 after knocking off Ohio State yesterday.

Indiana will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping from 30 to 39 after losing to Texas Tech and having some of its best wins drop in the rankings from the week before.  

Sunday Recap - Illini Downs The Aggies, Tulsa Upsets Ohio State, LSU Upends Vandy, Wake Impresses

The beat goes on for #4 Illinois as the Illini rolled into College Station today and rolled out several hours later with a 4-2 win over #9 Texas A&M.  Illinois was without its #1 Farris Gosea for the 2nd day in a row but just as they did against Texas the rest of the guys rallied and got it done.

The day didn't start off too well for Illinois as Texas A&M rolled at 1 and 2 doubles winning both courts by a 6-2 score.   Interesting comment below from Dancer about him feeling they played better doubles today than yesterday despite winning yesterday and losing today.

Both teams slightly altered their singles lineups by switching 5 and 6 but since both teams made the same moves the match-ups themselves were the same but just at a spot higher or lower than originally thought.

Texas A&M's AJ Catanzariti was first off the court with a quick 6-2, 6-1 win at #5 singles over yesterday's hero Blake Bazarnik but Illinois wouldn't stay scoreless for long because Toshiki Matsuya would ring up a 6-3, 6-4 win at #6 singles over Jordi Arconada.  As a side note, the Texas A&M live scoring showed Brian Page playing at #6 the entire match and it wasn't until the Illinois recap came out that it was revealed that it was really Matsuya.  Those 2 guys don't exactly look like each other so you would have thought somebody would have caught that sooner.

Sunday Preview - Illinois at Texas A&M + A Few Other Interesting Storylines

Another day brings another big match for Illinois as the Illini will try to make it 2 Top 10 wins in as many days after making the 100 mile trek from Austin to College Station. What's still unknown is whether we'll see the Illini's #1 Farris Gosea but I'd have to say that I would be more than surprised if he was available for action today.

For Texas A&M to take this one they'll need to play much better than they did on Friday night against a Vanderbilt team that was down its #1 while for Illinois to take it they'll need to play with the same urgency and tenacity that they played with yesterday against Texas.  The biggest thing going in Illinois's favor is that they'll be taking the court with the confidence of knowing they've already beat one top 10 team on the road so why not a second.

The guys on these teams are fairly familiar with each other with Illinois having made a trip to College Station each of the last 3 years to play in the Texas A&M Conference Challenge which takes place outdoors in October.  The familiarity with the courts and the potentially windy playing conditions will be a plus for Illinois as opposed to teams that only come down once every so often for a dual match.  This will also be the 3rd dual match these 2 have played in the last 13 months with Illinois winning at home last year and Texas A&M winning in Houston in a consolation match at the National Indoors.

Saturday Recap: Illini Lassos The Horns, USC Takes Round 1 Over UCLA, Northwestern Storms Back

Saturday was a great day for college tennis with the 2 biggest matches of the day broadcasted on TV with The Longhorn Network showing Texas/Illinois while the Pac 12 Network showed USC/UCLA. The only thing that kind of stunk a bit was the fact that the 2 matches were being played simultaneously so while I did switch back and forth a bit I primarily stayed with the Texas/Illinois match because of how close it was throughout.

When the starting lineups were posted 30 minutes before the start of the Texas/Illinois match I had to do a double take because I didn't see Farris Gosea's name anywhere.  I was hoping the guys on the Longhorn Network would fill us in on Gosea's absence but the only thing they mentioned was that Gosea wasn't there (as in didn't make the trip to Texas).  My best guess is that he was sick and that's why he didn't travel - again totally a guess.

The one thing that I've noticed over the years, yet often forget, is that when a team is down its #1 the rest of the guys seems to rise to the occasion and perform better than you think they would.  I noticed that last night when Vanderbilt played Texas A&M without Gonzales Austin - the Dores didn't win but they fought hard on every court. Illinois did more than just fight on Saturday, they took care of business in doubles and in the middle and lower half of the lineup and came out of Austin with a win.

Saturday Preview - USC/UCLA, Texas/Illinois, Northwestern/Columbia

They'll be 3 really good ones on Saturday with LA, Chicago, and Austin the places to be.  What's so great is that 2 of these 3 will be on TV with the Pac 12 Network carrying the singles portion of the USC/UCLA match and with the Longhorn Network carrying the Illinois/Texas match in its entirety.

It'll be interesting to see if USC can snap out of its recent funk or if UCLA can ride the comeback of Gage Brymer to an upset win.  It'll be interesting to see how Illinois looks after a 2 week layoff and whether they'll switch up 1 and 2 singles in an attempt to sweep the top 2 spots.  It will also will be interesting to see how Columbia looks playing outdoors at Northwestern and who they'll play in the lower half of the lineup.  Lots of questions to be answered in the next 24 hours - should be a great afternoon of tennis.

Below are my previews of each along with who I think will win on each court.

#14 UCLA (8-5) at #5 USC (11-2) - 2pm est - USC Live Stream - Pac 12 Network Coverage starts at 3pm with singles only.  This will be the 1st of 2 regular season matches between these 2 with a 3rd highly likely in the Pac 12 Tournament.  USC is 8-5 in doubles but has dropped the point the last 2 times out against Tulsa and San Diego while UCLA is 10-3 and has won the point in 7 of its last 8 matches.  I'm going to take the Bruins in doubles with wins at 1 and 3.  

Friday Recap - Aggies Over Short-Handed Vandy, Wake Hammers FSU, Louisville Get A Big Road W

Well the big match of the day was actually a good bit closer than I thought it would be after noticing that Vanderbilt was without its #1 singles player #10 Gonzales Austin who also makes up the #1 doubles team in the country with Rhys Johnson.  I still haven't seen anything official from anyone on why AJ didn't play but if I had to guess I'd say he was under the weather which I can relate to.

The one thing I don't get is how neither of the school's press releases bothered to even mention the fact that Austin didn't play.  I mean if the starting quarterback on the football team didn't play it'd have to be addressed by somebody, right?  If you are the person conducting the post match interviews wouldn't question #1 be "How do you think the absence of Vandy's #1 effected the match?" It sure would be my first question.   

Back to the match itself it was admirable that Vanderbilt was able to take the doubles point despite moving its #2 team up to #1 and putting together a make-shift team at #2 with both of those teams winning. 

In singles play, Texas A&M took 5 of 6 1st sets with AJ Catanzariti, Arthur Rinderknech, and Jeremy Efferding able to close them out in straights at 6, 4, and 1. On the 2 remaining courts Vandy had just got a split at #2 and was up a set and on serve at #3.  

Friday Preview

Friday will be a fairly light day of activity with just 8 teams in the Top 20 in action and with the only matchup between top 20 teams taking place in College Station as #9 Texas A&M hosts #11 Vanderbilt.

Before I preview that one here are a few others to keep an eye on today:

#31 San Diego (8-3) at #34 Texas Tech (12-4) - 1pm est - Live Scoring - San Diego is coming off a hard fought loss against USC and has wins on the year over South Carolina and South Florida while Texas Tech has only played 1 match in the last 3 weeks though has wins this year over Auburn and Mississippi State.  

#24 Florida State (10-4) at #19 Wake Forest (9-4) - 4pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming - FSU is coming off a weekend where the Noles beat Louisville and gave North Carolina all it wanted despite FSU playing without its #1 Benjamin Lock who was playing in the Davis Cup.  Wake has played its last 3 matches without its #1 Noah Rubin (wrist) going 1-2 in that stretch with respectable losses to Texas and Virginia and a win over TCU.  This should be a very competitive match that probably finishes 4-3 on way or the other.  

Thursday Recap & Notes: Georgia, South Carolina, & Texas all winners

This morning I got a chance to watch the Fox Sports Oklahoma telecast of Tuesday's Oklahoma/Virginia match and I must say I was impressed with the production of the match and the quality of the announcing.  The version I watched was taped and edited but they did a good job bouncing around from court to court.  They started the telecast a few games into singles and started showing the match at #1 singles but they also showed several games of the Alvarez/Shane match at #2 singles.  After those 2 matches finished up they showed the last 3 games of the Webb/Kwiatkowski match and then showed the last several games of the Bragusi/Aragone match. The only 2 courts they didn't go to were #4 and #5 singles.  I know the match was viewable live for a fee through Oklahoma's site though I don't know if that version had announcers or was just plain old streaming.  I also saw where the match was going to be replayed several times on Fox College Sports so if you have that channel check out a few minutes of the replay.

Today's match between Georgia and Tennessee was originally scheduled to be broadcasted on ESPN3 however recent weather delayed installation of the proper cables back to the Tennessee studio (per UT blog).

What's Coming Up

Tuesday was a great night for college tennis with both Oklahoma/Virginia and Baylor/Ole Miss delivering two great matches.  The lineup for this coming weekend is a little light with many teams starting to take some time off for spring break.  However there are a few notable matches with the interesting ones listed below.  

The match tomorrow between Georgia and Tennessee will be on ESPN3 so make sure you tune in catch the broadcast.  What is really odd is there is no mention of the telecast on Tennessee's website and in fact the only reason I know it's on ESPN3 is because I saw this tweet - CORRECTION - another tweet said this morning the match would NOT be streamed online.

UGA Bulldog Tennis @UGAtennis · Mar 10

Thursday's match vs. @Vol_Tennis will be shown on the SECN+ digital platform. Save this link to watch the match live: http://es.pn/1KePRZR 

Oklahoma Too Much For Virginia, Ohio State Overpowers Florida, Baylor Too Deep for Ole MIss

The headlining match of the day lived up to its billing as #1 Oklahoma came from behind to knock off #7 Virginia 4-3.  This showdown was played using the traditional scoring system which had doubles play a pro set to 8 and had ad scoring used in both doubles and singles.

Oklahoma jumped out to early 4-2 leads at 1 and 3 doubles and would actually lead 6-3 at #1 before Virginia started turning it around.  Virginia's #1 team of Corinteli/Shane broke at 4-6 to get it back on serve and it stayed that way until the tiebreak.  In the tiebreak the UVA #1s would win the final 2 points to take it 8-6. Virginia's #2 team of Kwiatkowski/Aragone broke to go up 4-3 and never let the lead go as they finished off Harris/Ghilea 8-6.  Virginia's #3 team of Frank/Altamirano came back from 4-2 down and would lead 7-5 at the time of the clinch.

In singles play, Virginia jumped out to early leads on several courts and would take the opening sets at 1, 3, 4, and 6 while Oklahoma picked up 1st sets at 2 and 5.  Virginia freshman Collin Altamirano was the first to finish as he knocked off Spencer Papa 6-4, 6-4 at #4 singles in a match where Altamirano was never broken.  Oklahoma's Axel Alvarez would put the Sooners on the board with a 6-4, 7-5 win at #2 singles while all the other matches would head to a 3rd set.  

3/10 ITA Rankings Have Been Released

The new rankings are out and if you scroll all the way down I've got both the men's and women's team rankings along with singles and doubles listed too.

Oklahoma retains its spot at #1 and widens its gap after picking up an impressive road win at Ohio State last week.  The Sooners now have 9, yes 9, top 20 wins so they are going to be up near the top for quite a while.   The 5 best wins used for these rankings were the road wins at Wake Forest and Ohio State, and neutral court wins against Baylor, USC, and Ole Miss.  For next week's rankings OU will have wins over #2 Baylor, #5 USC, at #10 Ohio State, and 2 wins over #12 North Carolina plus they play #7 Virginia tonight so a win in that one would push out one of the UNC wins.  

Baylor comes up 3 spots to #2 this week with the win over TCU giving them the boost they needed. BU's 5 best wins for these rankings were against Duke, Virginia (2X), TCU, and UCLA.  For next week's rankings BU will lose points with Duke and TCU both falling 4 spots however Virginia is up 5 spots (2X) and UCLA is up 2 spots plus the Bears will have a chance to add a road win tonight over #13 Ole Miss.

Tuesday Preview - Oklahoma/Virginia, Baylor/Ole Miss, Ohio State/Florida

Tuesday should be a terrific day of tennis with 6 of the top 12 in action with Norman (OK), Oxford (MS), and Gainesville (FL) the place to be at 3 and 6pm.  Usually matches like these are reserved for the weekend but we get 3 blockbusters early in the week.

#12 Virginia (9-2) at #1 Oklahoma (13-1) - 6pm est (Calm - Temps in 60s) - This is the premier match of the day with both of these teams expected to be national title contenders come May.  Despite the #12 ranking many consider Virginia to be a top 5, if not top 2 or 3, team because they are loaded with talent but have had a few spots in the lineup that haven't produced quite as well as originally expected.  Oklahoma of course if coming off the huge road win in Columbus that ended Ohio State's 200-match home court winning streak so the Sooners are going to be playing with a ton of confidence. Virginia is 9-2 in doubles while Oklahoma is 8-6 so you'd have to consider Virginia the favorite to take the doubles point but Oklahoma has won the point a few times when many weren't expecting it (USC 2X).

3/10 ITA Rankings Preview

Another crazy week of upsets is behind us so now we get to see what the rankings will look like on Tuesday.  This week's rankings are using each team's top 5 best wins as will next weeks.  The March 24th rankings will use each team's 6 best wins and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

Virginia Tech will be the biggest riser in the Top 50 by jumping from 44 up to 17 after knocking off Notre Dame and Duke over the weekend.

Notre Dame will take the biggest fall by dropping from 23 to 36 after losing to both Virginia Tech and Louisville.

Others Coming Up:

• Virginia comes up 5 spots from 12 to 7 by picking up 2 roads wins at Wake Forest and NC State.
• North Carolina comes up 7 spots from 19 to 12 by picking up wins at home over NC State and Florida State and they won both those matches without its #1 Brayden Schnur
• Northwestern comes up  6 spots from 21 to 15 by picking up a road win over Indiana.
• Minnesota comes up 11 spots from 34 to 23 by picking up ranked wins over Washington and Drake.
• Louisville comes up 6 spots from 33 to 27 due to its win over Notre Dame
• Oklahoma State comes up 6 spots from 37 to 31 largely due to 1 of its 5 best wins (Tulsa) jumping up so much last week

Hokies Rock #2 Duke, Deacs Hold Off TCU, Aggies Hold Off Feisty Gamecocks

The upsets keep on coming and today it was #2 Duke's turn as the Blue Devils got stunned by #44 Virginia Tech 6-1.  What made the Hokies win that much more impressive was the fact that Virginia Tech played singles without its #1 player Amerigo Contini which meant everybody else had to slide up 1 spot in the lineup.  Duke was also without its #5 singles player Chris Mengel.

Duke started off fine by taking the doubles point with wins at 1 and 2 but Virginia Tech would pick off Duke 1 by 1 in singles.  Florian Nicoud started things off by blowing out Josh Levine at #5 singles 6-1, 6-3 then Aaron Gomez gave Tech its first lead when he finished off TJ Pura 7-6(5), 6-0 at #6 singles.  Andreas Bjerrehus would put Virginia Tech up 3-1 when he broke Nicolas Alvarez to take the match at #1 singles 7-6(7), 6-4. With all remaining matches in the 3rd set it looked like VT's Hunter Koontz was going to be the one to clinch because he led 4-2 in the 3rd at #3 while Duke's Bruno Semenzato led 5-3 in the 3rd on #4 and Duke's Jason Tahir led 4-3 in the 3rd on #2. However Semenzato would be unable to serve it out up 5-4 then Edoardo Tessaro would consolidate the break with a hold to go up 6-5.  With Koontz nearing the finish line at 3, Tessaro decided he wanted to close it out himself and he broke Semenzato again to take the match and give Virginia Tech the stunning win.  Koontz would also win his match at #3 as would Joao Monteiro at #2 to make the final score 6-1 VT.

Note: ACC conference matches play a pro-set to 8 in doubles and utilize regular ad scoring similar to what will be used during the NCAA Championships.  The Big 10 is the only other major conference to use the same format while everyone else is playing no-ad. 

Roll Tide Roll - Bama Upsets #9 Ole Miss 4-2 + a few other results anda look towards Sunday

Who saw this one coming?  Alabama shocks #9 Ole Miss 4-2 in T-Town.  The same Alabama team that came into the match with an 8-9 record with the 8 wins being over powerhouses UAB, Samford, Jackson State (4X), and Jacksonville State (2X).  The same Ole Miss team that routed a top 15 Vanderbilt team last weekend and the same team that gave #1 Oklahoma all it wanted at the National Indoors.  Total head-scratcher....

Ole Miss played well in doubles and took the point by winning at 1 and 3 but singles got off to a rough start when William Kallberg retired 3 games in at #4 singles.  The Bama recap said it was due to injury but didn't specify what kind of injury but it must have been severe enough to force him to throw in the towel.  Ole Miss regained the lead when Stefan Lindmark wiped the court with Danny Kerznerman 6-1, 6-0 at #2 but then Stuart Kenyon, who came in with a 5-7 dual match record, did the same and cleaned Zvonimir Babic's clock 6-1, 6-2 at #5.  The biggest shocker came at #1 singles when Bama freshman Korey Lovett, who was 6-6 in dual match play, thumped #60 Nik Scholtz 6-2, 6-2.  It was only Scholtz's 2nd dual match loss of the year and just his 3rd in the last 2 years.  With the Tide up 3-2 it would be Bama junior Becker O'Shaughnessey who would seal the deal with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #3 singles over Gustav Hansson.

The Streak Is No More - Sooners over the Buckeyes 4-3 & Georgia clips Texas A&M 4-1

What a match tonight in Columbus with #1 Oklahoma coming in and knocking off #8 Ohio State 4-3 and thus snapping the Buckeyes unbelievable home court winning streak at 200.

Early on it looked like the streak would live on as Ohio State came out strong and took the doubles point by winning 6-4 at #1 and 6-2 at #3.  Ty Tucker decided to change up the singles lineup a bit by moving freshman Mikael Torpegaard up from 2 to 1 while moving Chris Diaz from 1 to 2 and Tucker also switched up Ralf Steinbach and Hunter Callahan by moving Steinbach up to 4 and dropping Callahan down to 5.  

Friday Preview - Sooners/Buckeyes, Hoos/Deacs, Aggies/Dawgs, Gators/Dores

It should be a fabulous Friday of college tennis and if you happen to be in close proximity to Athens (GA), Columbus (OH), Winston-Salem (NC), or Nashville (TN) I suggest you find a way to make it over to campus and watch some great high-level tennis.

If you can't make it out in person then at least make sure you take advantage of the free live streaming video that Georgia, Wake Forest, and Ohio State will be offering up for the matches.

I think we'll see at least 1 upset in the 4 big matches though I'd be surprised if we saw more than 1.

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of today's (3/5) date and the numbers beside that are the player's dual match record for this season.  For more details about UTR check out their website.


#10 Texas A&M (6-1) at #4 Georgia (9-2) - 2:30pm est - A year ago Texas A&M handed Georgia its only regular season conference loss when the Aggies won 4-1 in College Station but this year they'll be in Athens and most likely playing outdoors. Georgia is 8-3 in doubles but 6-0 since they changed pairings before the National Indoors while Texas A&M is a perfect 7-0 and in fact the Aggies have only dropped 1 individual court. This will be the first time this season that Texas A&M has ventured away from home while it'll likely be the 1st time this year that Georgia has played a whole match outdoors at home.  There won't be any individual rematches from last year and the only pairing that will have met before at the collegiate level are Adams and Pasha at #3 - they split matches back in 2013.  Doubles is too close to call so I'll look at the singles matches. 

Aztec Empire too strong for Bears, Trojans pushed by Toreros, Cowboys lasso in the Runnin' Rebs

The San Diego area was a hotbed of activity on Thursday with close to a dozen college teams in town to participate in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships.  Several of them decided to take advantage of the warm sunny weather by scheduling a dual match the day before the individual tournament started and the results were pretty close across the board.

The biggest upset came at San Diego State where the 60th ranked Aztecs upset #22 Cal 4-2.   Cal made a shift in the singles lineup and moved Greg Bayane up to 3 from his usual spot at 5/6 and with that Billy Griffith and J.T. Nishimura each played 1 spot lower than normal.  The changes didn't pay off as SDSU swept all 3 spots in addition to taking the all important doubles point.

Look Ahead + A Nice Comeback Story

Wednesdays are always a little quiet so I'll look ahead a little to show you what's in store for the rest of the week.

Also make sure you click on the link and read the nice comeback story about William Jewell College's Men's and Women's Head Coach Paul Worstell who has overcome acute lymphoblastic leukemia and made a successful return to the courts.  It wasn't an easy road for Worstell who endured 9 rounds of chemotherapy and eventually had a life saving stem cell transplant but has come through it all .  Worstell's Cardinals are currently 2-3 with a home match coming up this Saturday against Cowley County Community College.

Baylor & UCLA Both Win Going Away

Tulsa showed up at the LA Tennis Center with nothing to lose after upsetting USC and Pepperdine and lose is exactly what they did.  Billy Martin's boys came to play and they gave Tulsa a pretty thorough beating in every facet of the match.  UCLA's #1 and #3 doubles teams both posted 6-0 shutouts to seal the doubles point and give UCLA the early 1-0 lead.

Things never got any closer in singles as UCLA cruised to 5 1st sets and the 2nd sets went just as quickly with Mackenzie McDonald, Dennis Mkrtchian, Martin Redlicki, and Karue Sell all winning in straight sets.  The only positive for Tulsa was Mitchell Pritchard taking the 1st set at #5 singles.  

3/3 ITA & D1 Men's Coaches Rankings Have Been Released

The new ITA rankings are out and Oklahoma is back at the top spot due to its 5 Top 20 wins over USC, Baylor, Ole Miss, Wake Forest, and North Carolina.  The Sooners will have a chance to buffer the resume this Friday when they play at #8 Ohio State.  A win over the Buckeyes would bump the Wake Forest win and give OU an even bigger cushion at #1.

Duke moves up 2 spots to #2 as a result of its 5 Top 20 wins over Illinois, Ole Miss, TCU, Wake Forest, and Northwestern with the road wins at Illinois and Northwestern adding in the extra 10% bonus.  Duke's only match this week is at #44 Virginia Tech so they'll still have the same best 5 wins for next week's rankings and while Illinois and Northwestern stayed in the same spot, Ole Miss came up 1 spot, TCU came up 2, and Wake dropped 8.

Illinois holds firm at #3 with it also having 5 Top 20 wins over Baylor, Ohio State, Cal, Notre Dame, and North Carolina with the win over Baylor in Waco.  Illinois is off for the next 2 weeks so they won't be able to add to the win column so any ranking change next week would be due to their best wins going up or down in the rankings.  Baylor, Ohio State, and North Carolina stayed the same this week while Cal dropped 4 spots and Notre Dame dropped 9 spots.

Georgia moves up to #4 off the strength of a pair of road wins over the weekend against Florida and Auburn.  In my projections I had Georgia at 5 because I forgot to give them the 10% road bonus for the win at Auburn (sorry guys) - those extra points were enough to push them pass Baylor.  Georgia's other best wins are against Illinois, Columbia, and UCLA and even though Columbia fell 2 spots this week, UCLA came up 5, plus Florida came up 6 spots.  Georgia hosts #10 Texas A&M this Friday so a win would bump their 5th best win (Auburn) and give the Bulldogs a nice points jump.

Tuesday Preview - TCU/Baylor & Tulsa/UCLA

Nothing like a little mid-week tennis to get everybody excited and that's what we'll have Tuesday evening with #5 Baylor hosting #15 TCU and #21 UCLA hosting #51 Tulsa.

#15 TCU (8-3) at #5 Baylor (9-2) - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Blog + Video (if played outdoors) - This will be the Big 12 opener for both schools with Baylor fresh off a win over Virginia while TCU swept a pair of matches on Sunday against Wisconsin and Incarnate Word.  TCU started off the year with 5 straight wins including wins over Texas A&M and LSU but then got swept at the National Indoors by Duke, Virginia, and UCLA.  Baylor lost its opener at home to Illinois but since then they've beaten Tulsa, Duke, UCLA, and Virginia twice with just the 1 other loss to Oklahoma at the National Indoors semifinals.  Baylor is a perfect 11-0 in doubles and has only dropped 3 individual courts while TCU is just 4-5 so I can't see anyway that Baylor doesn't win this point.  TCU has used 7 different guys in singles with Trevor Johnson (13.38) also seeing plenty of action at 6 so it's possible he could play at 6 if either Dachs or Lugones can't play.  Diego Galeano has sat out the singles portion for the last 2 matches so it sounds like he isn't 100% so with the way the other guys have been playing I'd be surprised to see him singles in this one.    

3/3 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma will return to the top of the rankings tomorrow and in fact they would have been back at #1 even if USC hadn't lost to Tulsa.  Unlike last weeks rankings which used each teams 4 best wins, the next 3 sets of rankings will use each teams 5 best wins.  OU has 5 Top 20 wins and just the 1 loss to a top 10 Texas A&M.

Duke keeps climbing due to 5 Top 20 wins including road wins at #3 Illinois and #20 Northwestern. As a reminder the rankings reward road wins by giving a 10% points bonus.

Baylor's win over Virginia yesterday bumped them up to #4 just ahead of Georgia.

USC would have been #3 had they beaten Tulsa with the drop due to USC's 5th best win being over #37 Stanford.  The Tulsa loss pushed them down from #3 to #6.

Baylor Does It Again, Longhorns Too Good for Wake, Ole Miss Slams Vandy

It seemed like the story of the day wasn't who was playing; it was who wasn't playing as several big names were missing from their respective team's starting lineups.

The big rematch between Baylor and Virginia didn't come close to matching the level of play that we saw the first time around.  Virginia was without 2 of it's starters with neither Thai-Son Kwiatkowski or Alexander Ritschard playing.   Below is a quote from Virginia's recap that talks about the absence of the 2 players:

Sunday Update

A surprise to start the day as Virginia has shaken up its lineup, I'm guessing due to illness, with neither the ITA #1 Thai Son Kwiatkowski or UVA's #5 Alexander Ritschard are listed in singles.   The seldom used Jonathan Cornish is playing doubles for the first time this year at #3 along with Mac Styslinger.  Both Styslinger and Henrik Wiersholm are listed in the singles lineup at 4 and 6.  

Sunday Preview - UVA at Baylor & Wake Forest at Texas, Vandy at Ole Miss

Sunday will bring us some big time showdowns as #5 Baylor hosts #11 Virginia in Waco, #6 Texas hosts #12 Wake Forest in Austin, and #10 Ole Miss hosts #16 Vanderbilt in Oxford.  All 3 of these matches will be played indoors due to poor weather.

#11 Virginia (7-1) at #5 Baylor (8-2) - 2pm est - Live Scoring & Video (if outside) & Blog -  It was just 2 weeks ago that Baylor upset Virginia 4-3 in the National Indoors Quarterfinals and with temperatures expected to be in the 40s with a chance of rain this one will likely end up indoors too.  I expect both Brian Boland and Matt Knoll to do some tinkering with their respective lineups to try to avoid some unfavorable rematches.  I'd be surprised if Mitchell Frank was back at #1 to face Julian Lenz with Lenz having rolled in their last 2 encounters.  In my opinion I think Ryan Shane will get the call to step up to #1 with Frank dropping to #2.  Even though Tony Lupieri knocked off Thai Son Kwiatkowski in the last meeting I think Lupieri will probably play at #2 like he did against UCLA last weekend.  I'd also be a little surprised if Matt Knoll stuck with the same bottom 3 that he had in the last meeting since Virginia won at #4 and #6 in routine fashion.