NCAA First/Second Round Previews: North Carolina & Illinois Regionals

North Carolina Regional
Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center - Chapel Hill, NC

[2] North Carolina Tar Heels (25-4) vs. [49-64] College of Charleston Cougars (19-6) - Saturday Noon ET - North Carolina got in as an at-large after falling to Virginia in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament while Charleston punched its ticket by defeating UNC Wilmington in the finals of the Colonial Conference Tournament. Charleston went 1-5 against ranked opponents with the one win coming over UNC Wilmington. Charleston went 0-2 against ACC opponents falling to Virginia Tech and Clemson by a combined score of 13-1. Charleston has two starters that began their collegiate careers elsewhere with Juan Estevarena transferring in from Mississippi State while Garrett Gordon transferred in from Georgia Tech. 

Doubles Records: North Carolina 22-7, College of Charleston 15-9

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: North Carolina 84, College of Charleston 75

Saturday Recap: Lamar Upsets Rice, ODU Over W&M, Drake Beats Wichita State, Ivies, GGC Outduels HPU, & More

There were two bigger stories on Saturday - the rain that wiped out several matches and Lamar upsetting No. 28 Rice 4-1. The bad weather out in California washed out the Oregon/Cal and San Diego/Santa Clara matches while UNC Wilmington and VCU were rained out in Richmond. Both of the matches in California are set to be played on Sunday while UNC Wilmington and VCU won't make their match up.

Earlier this season Lamar upset then No. 47 Iowa 4-2 but today's win over Rice took it to a new level. Lamar took the doubles point by winning the deciding match at No. 2 in a tiebreak and then the Cardinals took four opening sets in singles. Lamar junior Nikita Lis rolled over Tommy Bennett 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 but Rice senior Adam Gustafsson countered with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Sebastian Santibanez at No. 3.

Saturday Recap: SoCal Too Tough For NorCal, SMU Stuns South Florida, Texas Tech Wins A Thriller at Baylor, Ivy Roundup

It was a nice weekend for the two Southern California Pac-12 schools as both UCLA and USC swept their Northern California neighbors, Cal and Stanford. Both Cal and Stanford went 2-0 in doubles on the weekend but neither could do enough damage in singles to make the early lead hold up.

Cal's Mads Engsted and JT Nishimura cruised to a 6-2 win at No. 3 doubles over Gage Brymer and Max Cressy but the Bruins appeared to be in control with 4-1* and *4-2  leads at No. 1 and No. 2. Cal would get the break back on both courts and Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat would take the final five games at No. 1 to win it 6-4 and give the Bears the doubles point.

UCLA came back in singles and took opening sets at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. UCLA sophomore Martin Redlicki made quick work over the slumping Andre Goransson by winning 6-1, 6-3 at No. 2. Goransson went 13-2 in the fall with 7 ranked wins but he's just 5-8 in dual-match play with a 1-8 record against ranked opponents.

Thursday Recap: Tulsa Wins In Waco, FSU Beats GT, & Dartmouth Salvages Its Road Trip

The hosts of this year's NCAAs met the hosts of last year's NCAAs on Thursday night and in a mild surprise it was Tulsa defeating Baylor 4-3.

Baylor played without Will Little, who normally plays at No. 1 doubles and No. 4 singles, and despite a valiant effort it couldn't get it done at home. Tulsa took the all-important doubles point with Majed Kilani and Carlos Bautista winning the decider at No. 3 doubles 7-6(2).

Tuesday Recap: TCU Slides Past Northwestern, Kentucky Stuns Illinois, Drake Beats Oregon, Tulsa Tops Dartmouth

Usually Tuesdays are reserved for the the release of the rankings, but today should have been renamed 4-3day with one match after another going down to the wire.

TCU and Northwestern were originally supposed to meet a few weeks ago in Evanston but due to bad weather TCU's flight was cancelled so they made up the match up today in Fort Worth. Today in Fort Worth there were high winds anticipated so play was moved indoors though evidently it never got as windy as forecasted.

Sunday recap: Georgia Knocks off Ohio State, Virginia Scalps Florida State, Oklahoma Beats Cal, Florida Blasts Ole Miss

There were several close matches on Sunday but there was only one that saw a top-five team go down. Georgia, ranked No. 19, was hosting No. 4 Ohio State on a mild and breezy day in Athens. After a week of sunny skies and temperatures in the high-70s, the conditions in Athens weren't as favorable with cloudy skies, an increasing breeze, and temperature hovering in the mid-50s. Despite the conditions a crowd of just over 1000 filled into the Dan Magill Tennis Complex and they were treated to a stellar performance by the home-standing Bulldogs.

Georgia Wins!! (Photo Courtesy of Bill Kallenberg)

I personally thought Ohio State would roll in doubles, but Georgia seemed determined to not let that happen.

Wake Rocks OU, Boilers Stun Tulsa, Rice Claws LSU, Nwstern Too Good For Duke, Dartmouth Out Greens The Wave

While the final day of the Pac-12/SEC Showdown in Los Angeles was a washout, it was warm and dry at the indoor facilities in Norman and Tulsa.

Wake Forest was coming off a tough loss on Friday to #25 Oklahoma State but the Demon Deacons made up for it today by taking out #2 Oklahoma. Wake played a solid doubles point as its #2 team of Petros Chrysochos and Jon Ho ran away with a quick 6-1 win at #2. Wake's #1 team of Christian Seraphim and Skander Mansouri broke the Axel Alvarez serve to go up 2-0 but Alvarez and Spencer Papa broke back to make it 2-1. It stayed on serve until Wake broke Spencer Papa's 5-6 service game on the deciding point to take the match 7-5 and give Wake the usually all-important doubles point. The match at #3 was on serve when Wake got the clincher at #1.

Oklahoma was playing without its #2 singles starter, Andrew Harris, since he's still recovering from knee tendonitis so everyone except Axel Alvarez had to shift up a spot in the lineup. OU had to do the same thing last week so it wasn't a surprise to any of the guys.

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.

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.

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.