Sunday Preview - Florida/Texas A&M & Ohio State/Oklahoma

A couple of good ones on the docket for today. Texas A&M and Florida were voted #2 and #3 in the preseason SEC coaches poll while Oklahoma and Ohio State were in everyone's preseason top 10.

#30 Florida (6-3) at #8 Texas A&M (12-3) - 1pm est/12pm cst - Live Scoring & Video - Florida is coming off a 4-3 road win at LSU in a match where Florida dropped the doubles point but won the first four completed singles matches. Texas A&M is coming off a comfortable 6-1 road win at Auburn. Texas A&M is very, very tough to beat at home so Florida will have to bring its A+ game to come away with a win.

UCLA/USC Preview

It's once again time for the battle for LA as #6 UCLA hosts #12 USC. Both schools are coming off wins at Stanford with UCLA squeezing out a 4-3 win while USC was a little more impressive in its 5-2 win. Both will be heading to La Jolla for the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships later in the week so this will be a chance to get some momentum before the guys play in that individual tournament.

USC swept all three meetings last season with the Trojans winning 4-1 at home, 4-2 in Westwood, and 4-1 at the Pac 12 Tournament in Ojai though Max de Vroome and Nick Crystal are the only 2 returning starters from those USC teams. This will be USC's second dual-match this season at the LA Tennis Center after it defeated #30 Florida 4-3 during the Pac-12/SEC Challenge.

#12 USC (7-2) at #6 UCLA (9-2) - 5:30pm est/2:30pm pst - Live Scoring

Saturday Preview - Oklahoma St/South Florida, UCLA/Stanford, Virginia/Illinois

#9 Oklahoma State (10-1) vs. #14 South Florida (7-3) (Montgomery, AL) - 1:30pm est/12:30pm cst - Live Scoring - These teams were originally slotted in opposite ends of the draw at the Blue Gray but a last minute change was made and they'll end up facing each other in the semis. Oklahoma State is coming off a 4-0 win over Alabama in a match that could have finished 4-3 because the Tide led on each of the three remaining courts. South Florida was challenged by Boise State on Friday but still won it 4-0 and it probably would have finished 7-0 had it been played out.

South Florida loves playing outdoors while Oklahoma State is probably a little better indoors so I think that may help determine the outcome. Both teams have played great doubles this season so that should be a tightly contested point.

Sunday Preview - Texas A&M at Illinois

#7 Texas A&M (10-3) at #12 Illinois (6-3) - 1pm est/12pm cst - Texas A&M comes into this one having dropped three in a row after starting 10-0 while Illinois has split its last four though it dropped two of three during the National Indoors. As has been the case all season, Illinois has been relying on the top of its lineup to get it done with the bottom struggling to come through. The doubles point is going to be essential for the Illini because without it I really don't see them winning.

Doubles record: Illinois 5-4 (4-0 at home), Texas A&M 11-2 (1-1 away)
Indoor record: Illinois 6-3 (4-0 at home), Texas A&M 2-3 (1-1 away)

Big Slam Preview - Cal at Stanford

The big match of the day on Saturday takes place in Palo Alto as #22 Stanford hosts #18 Cal in the "Big Slam" Part 1. This will be a non-conference matchup with the official conference matchup taking place in Berkeley on April 16. Last season the teams met three times with Stanford taking two of the three by winning at Cal and in Ojai in the Pac-12 semis.

The first meeting in Berkeley was a wild 4-3 win by Stanford that saw Maciek Romanowicz come back from 5-2 down in the third to beat JT Nishimura 7-5 in the deciding match. Cal took the second meeting 4-3 when Billy Griffith held off Nolan Paige 6-4 in the third in the deciding match. Stanford won the rubber match 4-1 at the Pac-12 Tournament in a match that was extremely tight.

Cal is coming off a tremendous pair of wins over #3 TCU and #24 Texas while Stanford is coming off gut wrenching losses to those same two teams.

Tuesday Preview - #9 UCLA vs. #1 Virginia

There's going to be a ton of good tennis this weekend in Charlottesville with Virginia hosting the National Team Indoors but I think the best matchup of the week might be tonight with Virginia hosting #9 UCLA. I have these teams as #1 and #2 in my rankings and I expect that this will be a very, very good match with plenty of courts going three sets.

This will be Virginia's first real test of the season while UCLA has been tested a few times but this will be the first time that the Bruins have played indoors. The doubles point will be more crucial for UCLA because it's going to be hard enough to win three singles matches over Virginia let alone four.

Here is an article from the Daily Bruin talking about the match from a Bruin standpoint and here is one from the Daily Progress coming from the Virginia standpoint. Virginia will also be down one usual starter with last season's #5 Alexander Ritschard recovering from a shoulder injury.

Let's dive into the numbers and see what they say.

Sunday Preview - Cal/TCU, Ohio State/Va Tech, UNC/OU, Texas A&M/South Florida

#5 Oklahoma (3-1) at #7 North Carolina (5-0) - 1pm est - Live Scoring & Video - Oklahoma is coming off a 5-2 win at #63 Alabama on Friday while North Carolina last played a week ago when it shutout #12 Illinois 4-0. The Sooners really have missed the presence of its #2 Andrew Harris (14.76) who has been sidelined for a while with knee tendinitis and without him they've had to make adjustments to both the singles and doubles lineups. Axel Alvarez comes into this match having lost two straight and the team has dropped the doubles point in two straight matches. North Carolina has been battling some injuries as well though both Brayden Schnur (tendinitis) and Ronnie Schneider (ankle) have continued to play but their results have been just so-so (2-3). 

Wednesday Preview - #4 Texas A&M at #5 Baylor

There's a big top 5 showdown taking place tonight in Waco as #5 Baylor hosts in-state and former Big 12 rival #4 Texas A&M with first serve going up at 6pm central. Neither team has faced a top 25 opponent yet though Baylor was tested during the Kick-Off Weekend by Oregon.

#4 Texas A&M (4-0) at #5 Baylor (5-0) - 7pm est/6pm cst – Live Scoring/Live Blog/Live Video (Indoors) - This will be Texas A&M's first match since its Kick-Off Weekend wins over Fresno State and Boise State while Baylor is coming off wins over Midwestern State (D2), Prairie View A&M (SWAC), and Incarnate Word (Southland). This will be the first meeting between the two since they played in the Round of 16 at the 2014 National Team Indoors in Houston. Baylor won that meeting 4-3 but Julian Lenz is the only current member that was part of that team while Harrison Adams, Shane Vinsant, and Jackson Withrow were the only current Aggies on the team back then. 

Sunday Preview - USC/UGA, UCLA/FLA, OU/Wake

I'm going to make my predictions on the 2 matches out in Los Angeles even though its looks like a wash out today - ground is wet as of 8am.  If they get these matches in they'd almost definitely play singles first and would only play doubles if necessary. (Both matches have been officially been cancelled due to rain)

#11 Wake Forest (4-1) at #2 Oklahoma (2-0) - 1pm est/12pm cst - Live Scoring & Fox Sports - Wake Forest is coming off a 4-2 loss at Oklahoma State on Friday night while Oklahoma plays for the first time since last weekend when they won a couple of tuneups against Troy and Utah State. The big question mark for Oklahoma is whether Andrew Harris makes his season debut because if he doesn't that might make Oklahoma a little vulnerable at the bottom of the lineup. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tony Bresky flop Bogaerts and Ho at #3 and #4 after Bogaerts got beat pretty soundly on Friday night at #3 against Oklahoma State's Arujn Kadhe. Last season Oklahoma went to Winston-Salem and won 5-2 but I think this one has the makings a 4-3 match.

Friday Preview - Illinois/Duke & Wake Forest/Oklahoma St

This busy weekend of college tennis gets started with a couple of good ones in Durham and Stillwater. Illinois was dominate in its first three matches last weekend while Duke has taken a few tough losses at home with its lone win coming over an unranked Elon. Wake Forest faced some resistance last weekend against Auburn while Oklahoma State was an eye lash away from upsetting #3 TCU before falling 4-3. I expect both matches to be highly competitive despite the rankings difference.

#7 Illinois (3-0) at #24 Duke (1-2)  - 6pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming - Most knew that Duke would struggle a little this season after losing Jason Tahir, Raphael Hemmeler, Bruno Semenzato, and Chris Mengel but the one thing that has been a bit surprising has been the play of Nicolas Alvarez. The sophomore from Lima, Peru started off the fall by making it to the finals of the Oracle/ITA Masters but since then he's just 2-5. Alvarez lost to San Diego's Uros Petronijevic in straight sets last weekend and the week prior he lost in straights to Kentucky's William Bushamuka. Both of those guys are solid players but to lose both in straight sets was surprising.

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.    

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.

Saturday Preview - Illini/Irish, Bruins/Cardinal, Gators/Gamecocks

Compared to what we'll see on Sunday (Virginia at Baylor, Wake Forest at Texas, Vanderbilt at Ole Miss) Saturday should be fairly tame day with just 1 matchup between top 15 schools.  Below are the best ones that I saw on the docket so check them out if you get a chance.

#34 South Carolina (8-6) at #17 Florida (5-3) - 1pm est. - Live Scoring - South Carolina comes into this one on a 3-match losing streak which includes a 4-2 loss on Thursday to Auburn while Florida is coming off a tough 4-1 loss to Georgia. Florida is 4-4 in doubles while South Carolina is 11-3 with both dropping the doubles point the last time out. Here's an interesting stat that you don't see too often for a team at this level - South Carolina is 0-13 at the #1 singles spot this year.  Most likely that streak will stay intact tomorrow because I'd be surprised if Hidalgo didn't beat Koch.  

Stanford/USC 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.

Bulldogs Bite The Gators, Auburn Over South Carolina, Big Green Beats Big Blue, Stanford/USC Preview

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.

Dawgs vs. Gators

The oldest tennis rivalry in the Deep South will add another chapter to its history books on Thursday evening when 17th ranked Florida hosts 7th ranked Georgia with 1st serve set to go up at 5:30pm sharp.  Georgia has played Florida more times than any other opponent and the same goes for Florida. One oddity I noticed is that Florida's media guide shows it's played Georgia 100 times while Georgia's only lists 75 matches against Florida.  Below is what each shows is the record against the other: 

Georgia shows an all-time record of 56-19 against Florida,

Florida shows an all-time record of 39-60-1 against Georgia.  

So as you can see there is a rather large variance with the start date of the series being the culprit - Florida shows the series started in 1932 while Georgia shows it started in 1955.  Regardless of who counts what they've played a lot of times and will lock horns again tomorrow so let's dive in and look at the individual matches.  As a side note this will be Georgia's 1st outdoor dual match with all its matches up to this point being played indoors.  

Sunday Preview

Rain is in the forecast in many parts of the country so matches are being cancelled or being moved indoors.  Here is my preview of the bigger matches on Sunday (Texas A&M/Tulsa already cancelled due to rain).

#23 Vanderbilt (8-2) at #25 Harvard (8-2)- 12pm est - Harvard Twitter & Video - Both teams have beaten Minnesota over the last 2 days with Vandy squeaking out a 4-3 win on Friday while Harvard throttled the Gophers pretty good on Saturday by a 5-2.  Vandy is 7-2 in doubles while Harvard is 8-2 so it should be a pretty exciting start to the the match.  I could see Harvard winning the match despite dropping the doubles point but I don't see Vanderbilt finding 4 points without the doubles point.  Vandy has now played in 6 matches that have finished 4-3 while Harvard has played in 5 that were either 4-2 or 4-3 so both teams are used to the pressure.  I like Vandy in doubles and Austin and Valent in singles but I like Beltrame, Hu, Tao, and Yeung for the Crimson.  Prediction: Harvard 4-3

Projected Lineup
1. #8 Gonzales Austin (VU 14.40) vs. #91 Denis Nguyen (HV 13.99)
2. Rhys Johnson (VU 13.34) vs. #80 Sebastian Beltrame (HV 13.21)
3. Kris Yee (VU 13.73) vs. Nicky Hu (HV 13.78)
4. Danny Valent (VU 13.74) vs. Alex Steinroeder (HV 13.37)
5. Baker Newman (VU 13.00) vs. Kenny Tao (HV 13.11)
6. Suresh Eswaran (VU 12.87) vs. Brian Yeung (HV 13.19)

Stanford wins the Big Slam, Ohio State makes it 200 straight, Wake toogood, Ivy League no joke + My Sunday Preview

I knew it'd be hard for today's matches to follow up those from Friday but while a few of them came up short in the drama department the one that didn't was the "Big Slam" in Berkeley as Stanford pulled out a classic 4-3 win over rival Cal.  

Cal jumped out to the early lead by taking the doubles point with a 7-5 win at #3 doubles in the clinching match.  Stanford welcomed freshman David Hsu back into the singles lineup at 5 which shifted Nolan Paige to 6 while Cal made a switch at 5 and 6 and moved Greg Bayane up from 6 to 5 and dropped Wikberg from 5 to 6.  After dropping the doubles point the momentum shifted back to Stanford in singles as the Cardinal took 4 opening sets and managed to finish 3 of them off in straights as Tom Fawcett, John Morrissey, and "Rollin" Nolan Paige won at 1, 3, 6 to give Stanford a 3-1 lead.  Cal would answer back with wins from Filip Bergevi and Greg Bayane at 2 and 5 to tie it up at 3.  

All focus was centered on #4 singles where Cal freshman J.T. Nishimura had opened up a 5-2 lead in the 3rd set over Stanford junior Maciek Romanowicz and Nishimura was serving for the match. Nishimura fell behind 15-40 in his service game and after getting it back to the deciding point (40-40), which was also a match point, he would put a shot into the net to give Romanowicz the break. Romanowicz went up 40-15 on his 3-5 service game but then Nishimura hit a two-handed forehand winner to make it 40-30 and followed that up with a backhand winner past a drawn in Romanowicz to bring up the deciding point (40-40).  Nishimura chose the ad-court to receive the serve on what would be his final match point and Romanowicz landed his 1st serve out wide and as the outstretched arm of Nishimura deflected it back in play Romanowicz closed in toward the net and hit a volley into the open court for the hold.  Nishimura would now serve for the match for a 2nd time up 5-4 and he would quickly get broke at love as Romanowicz continued to play aggressively while Nishimura tightened up and had difficulty keeping the ball in play.  Romanowicz would then hold at 40-15 to go up 6-5 and would then race out to an 0-40 lead on the Nishimura serve. After a Romanowicz error made it 15-40 Nishimura wouldn't be able to keep the next one in play and with that Stanford had stunned its rival 4-3.

Saturday Preview

Friday was an entertaining start to the weekend and I expect that Saturday should more of the same.  Let's take a look at the highlighted matches on Saturday.

The number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of the current date so Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan has a 14.28 UTR as of today 2/21.  For more details about UTR check out theirwebsite.  

#17 Notre Dame (6-1) at #9 Ohio State (10-3) - 12pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming - Ohio State goes for #200 in a row at home (according to my records) though it won't be easy as Notre Dame usually gives Ohio State a tough match just about every year.  Ohio State has won 10 straight in the series and leads the all-time series 28-27.  A year ago in South Bend, Notre Dame jumped out to a 2-0 lead only to see Ohio State win 4 straight singles matches with the final 2 both being 7-6 in the 3rd.  If the projected lineups below hold up there will be just 1 rematch from last year with that being the match at 1 where Diaz knocked off Monaghan 7-6, 6-4.  Ohio State is 11-2 in doubles while Notre Dame is 6-1.  The Irish must take the doubles point to have a realistic chance at stopping the streak but I think Ohio State gets the point and picks up wins from the bottom 3 of Steinbach, Callahan, and Metka to pull it out.  Prediction:  Ohio State 4-1

Projected Lineup:
1. #29 Quentin Mongahan (ND 14.28) vs. #53 Chris Diaz (OSU 13.80)
2. #92 Josh Hagar (ND 13.74) vs. #30 Mikael Torpegaard (OSU 13.95)
3. Eddy Covalschi (ND 13.13) vs. Herkko Pollanen (OSU 13.58)
4. Eric Schnurrenberger (ND 13.45) vs. #68 Ralf Steinbach (OSU 13.91)
5. Billy Pecor (ND 12.98) vs. #110 Hunter Callahan (OSU 13.90)
6. Nicolas Montoya (ND 12.48) vs. Kevin Metka (OSU 13.80)