Roditi Named Mexico Davis Cup Captain, Change at Clemson, Update On US Open National Playoff

TCU head coach David Roditi added another title today when he was named captain of the Mexico Davis Cup team. Roditi who just finished his sixth year at the helm of his alma mater played in several Davis Cup ties for Mexico from 1997 to 2000. Roditi's first tie will take place on July 15-17 when Mexico travels to Peru.

Clemson made a coaching change on Tuesday with eight year assistant John Boetsch taking over for Chuck McCuen who had been head coach for the last eight years. McCuen, who went 110-96 in those eight seasons with two NCAA appearances, will remain on as the Director of Tennis Operations.

The US Open National Playoffs are well underway with four sectionals already completed. Many of the names below should be familiar to those that follow college tennis and I'm sure that plenty of the upcoming winners will be as well. You can look at all upcoming events at this link.

Thursday Conference Tournament Results

Several conference tournaments got underway on Wednesday, with an abbreviated schedule, but they really got going on Thursday with the ACC and SEC having four matches each.

All four matches at the SEC Tournament in Columbia, South Carolina, were hotly contested with South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Kentucky the day's winners.

The four matches at the ACC were quite as suspenseful with Virginia Tech rolling over Miami 4-0, Georgia Tech pulling away from Louisville 4-1, Notre Dame holding off Duke 4-1, and NC State edging Clemson 4-2.

Both of the matches in Ojai were 4-0 shutouts with Cal and Stanford overwhelming Washington and Oregon.

Ride Sally Ride - Mustangs Run Over The Pokes, Boise State Comes Up Big Again, Texas Takes Out Tulsa

The hits keep on coming and on today's playlists we heard the 1966 classic Mustang Sally after No. 36 SMU ran all over No. 5 Oklahoma State 4-0.

SMU jumped out to the early 1-0 lead after taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 and then the Mustangs claimed four opening sets in singles. SMU's Nate Lammons made it 2-0 with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Julian Cash at No. 1 and then Hunter Johnson put the Mustangs a point away from clinching with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Arjun Kadhe at No. 2. Redshirt junior Tony Russell would bring it home for SMU with a 7-6, 6-3 upset win over Lukas Finzelberg at No. 5.

Noles Shock #1 UNC, Razorbacks Upset #7 Texas A&M, Clemson beats #38 Notre Dame

Friday was a day of upsets with the biggest shocker coming in Tallahassee as No. 51 Florida State stunned No. 1 and previously unbeaten North Carolina 4-3.  Florida State was coming off a tough 4-3 loss to Miami last Sunday so the thought of them beating the No. 1 team in the country had to be a long shot at best coming in.

FSU's Aziz Dougaz and Michael Rinaldi were first off the court at No. 2 doubles as they defeated UNC's Brayden Schnur and Jack Murray 6-1. UNC's Andrew Gores and Ronnie Schneider won 6-3 at No. 3 over Jose Gracia and Terrance Whitehurst but FSU took the doubles point when Benjamin Lock and Marco Nunez defeated Brett Clark and Robert Kelly 6-4 at No. 1.

Thursday Action: Early Upsets in the ACC & Mountain West & Late Drama in the Pac 12 and B1G

It was a day of close matches as we saw several lower seeds pull off upsets.  In the ACC, #75 Clemson beat #32 Louisville 4-3 and #55 Georgia Tech hammered #35 Notre Dame 4-0.  In the Mountain West unranked Nevada sent #67 Utah State packing win a 4-2 win and Boise State did the same to #69 Fresno State by knocking them off 4-0.  In the Big Ten, Michigan beat #48 Penn State 4-2 and Nebraska came from behind to beat Michigan State 4-3.  In the Pac 12, #50 Oregon looked like it was going to upset #25 Cal but the Bears rallied to win 4-3.  Read about each match below.

Clemson lost the regular season meeting against Louisville at home by a 5-2 score though none of the singles matches were repeats this time around.  Louisville won the doubles point last time with Clemson taking it this time.  Clemson got wins from Alejandro Augusto, Luke Johnson, and Hampton Drake with the freshman from Hilton Head providing the clincher at #6 singles by taking the 3rd set 6-0.  Below are some interviews from Clemson's youtube:

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.