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.

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.

Kentucky Holds Off Bama, FSU Slides Past Duke, Wisconsin Wins In Des Moines, Georgia Tech Tops NC State

Friday and Saturday brought us a ton of upsets but things leveled out on Sunday with most higher ranked teams holding court and getting the win.

Florida State capped off a nice weekend by defeating No. 66 Duke 5-2. The Seminoles claimed the doubles point by sweeping all three courts and then it took four opening sets in singles.

Friday night's hero, Marco Nunez, was first off the court with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Vincent Lin at No. 2 and his teammate Jose Gracia would put the Noles up 3-0 with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Ryan Dickerson at No. 5.

Cal Stuns TCU, UNC Takes Out OU, Texas Hooks Stanford, Bucks Blank Hokies

Some days things go your way and some days they don't - for TCU, Oklahoma, and Stanford it was the latter while Cal, North Carolina, and Texas walked away with big smiles on its faces.

Cal got punched in the gut when it couldn't participate in the Kick-Off Weekend due to weather but they made up for it this weekend in spades with wins over #26 Texas and #2 TCU.

Both Cal and TCU played physical matches on Saturday with each getting pushed by its opponents but while Cal bounced back TCU wasn't able to keep up the Bears.

TCU pulled out the doubles point for the second day in a row with wins at #2 and #3 but Cal got humming in singles and took opening sets at #2, #3, #4, and #6.

ITA Women's National Team Indoor Preview

The second-largest team tournament in collegiate tennis behind the NCAAs is the ITA National Team Indoor event. 15 schools advanced in Kick-Off Regionals to join host Wisconsin in Madison in the prestigious event that lasts from Friday through Monday. Last year, North Carolina dropped only 2 points in its 4 matches to clinch its 2nd title in 3 years. Lots of questions come into the tournament - can UNC match its title run after two of its three stars left? Can Vanderbilt show the world that its NCAA title isn't a fluke? Will UGA turn its consistency into a national title? Will a new team emerge from Madison as a top-tier team?

Friday Recap: Pokes Take Out The Deacs, Illini Dabs The Duke, Seminoles Roll The Tide, Tulane Wins Thriller

There was a solid schedule of matches on Friday and fortunately for us viewers almost all of them had a live stream available. There were a pair of top 25 teams going head to head and as expected both were close matches. #7 Illinois held on for a 4-3 road win at #24 Duke while #25 Oklahoma State pulled off the upset and beat #11 Wake Forest.

Oklahoma State took the doubles point with wins at #1 and #2 and then picked up first sets at #3, #5, and #6 while Wake took the rest. It looked like Dennis Uspensky was going to get the first set at #5 but Tristan Meraut broke him and then took the tiebreak 7-4.

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.

ITA Women: UCLA Stunned, Ohio State Claims 1st NTI Berth

14 of the 15 ITA Kickoff Regionals saw play today, with Cal struggling with rain for the second consecutive day. Five Regionals were completed with 3 No.1 seeds, a No.2 seed and a surprise No.3 seed claiming final victories to join Wisconsin at the ITA National Team Indoor, being held February 5-8 in Madison, WI.

#5 North Carolina Regional: Tar Heels Dominate Singles

The UNC Tar Heels, the reigning NTI champions, looked in good form today, blanking #48 Tulsa 4-0 to advance to Madison. UNC dropped only 10 games in their 5 completed first sets, with the No.4 match in a tiebreaker when play was called. Maria Akkerman was the star of the weekend, losing just three games in her two matches combined. Hayley Carter continued to impress this weekend and Whitney Kay did a complete 180 from yesterday to completely rout her ranked opponent. In the 3rd/4th playoff, #53 Marshall rallied from 1-3 down to take out #68 Yale, with the Herd claiming the win at No.1.

ITA Women: Top Seeds Cruise In Friday's ITA Kickoff

Six of the ITA Kickoff Regionals began today and all No.1 seeds cruised without much difficulty. Fresno State was the lone No.3 seed to earn a scalp into tomorrow's final. UGA and UNC were the top 2 teams to play and routed Wyoming and Yale, respectively. The closest match of the weekend, ranking-wise, was No.18 Ohio State's 4-3 thriller over No.19 Pepperdine. Tomorrow should bring some tighter matches and a few upsets. For my predictions for the entire weekend, check out my preview here.

Kentucky Upsets #13 Duke, Washington Too Much for #12 Texas, Northwestern Rolls

Well that didn't take long - on the first weekend of the season a pair of Top 15 teams got upset as unranked Kentucky went into Durham and beat #13 Duke 4-3 and #62 Washington rebounded from a Friday loss to UCSB and knocked off #12 Texas by a 4-3 score. As I mentioned when the preseason rankings came out a week ago, the rankings didn't really take into account the number of starters that some teams lost and thus ranked a few of them way too high. Both Texas and Duke fell into that category because each team had to replace 4 starters and most of the replacements were freshman.

Anyway back to the day's events starting first in Durham. Duke and Kentucky battled it out in doubles with all 3 matches going back and forth. Kentucky went up an early double break at #1 and led 3-0 but Duke would claw back and end up taking it in a tiebreak. Duke had the break lead at #2 but lost it only to break late and take it 7-5. Duke also had the early break lead at #3 but Kentucky came back to forth a tiebreak which Duke ultimately won.

Top 20 - Who Is Coming Back & Who Is Departing (Part 1)

Well its time to put the 2014-15 season in the rear-view mirror and start looking ahead to next year. There are 4 teams (TCU/USC/Texas/Duke) in the final top 10 that will have to replace 4 starters so those teams could face an uphill climb next year to return to the top 10.

The new recruits section is from tennisrecruiting.net so its possible some of those guys may not end up where they are currently showing. Several teams will probably have some guys coming in from outside the U.S. so we probably won't know any names until the schools put out a release or we see the name on the roster in August/January.

I'm sure we'll also see some guys transfer as we do every year. We probably won't know those until they show up on a new roster in the fall or we see a name with a different school beside it on the ITA All American list of participants in late September. I've added a new tab at the top to keep up with transfers throughout the summer.

NCAA Round of 16: High Drama Early and Calm Waters Later

It was a wild and crazy Thursday with it taking 6+ hours to complete the opening matches due to a series of rain/lightning delays. Both the Oklahoma/UCLA and Georgia/Texas matches started outdoors and were finished indoors due to 3 rain delays and lastly a lightning delay.

Before I go through the matches I wanted to thank you guys on twitter for Periscoping some of the key points in the indoor matches where there wasn't streaming video available.  Big shout out to Jeff McMillan and Drew Mastin who both did a great job letting me and many others follow the end of the Oklahoma/UCLA and Georgia/Texas matches. Jeff also had footage of many of the key moments in the Virginia/Columbia match as well. They say a picture is worth a thousand words - well if that's the case then a video is worth a million words. It's so much better to be able to watch and experience these matches on some kind of video because words can only tell you so much.  Thanks again guys!!

The unpredictable Oklahoma doubles pairings surprised many of us by taking the doubles point with ease over UCLA.  Both Harris/Ghilea and Webb/Papa won 8-4 at #1 and #2 doubles.

Round of 16 Preview - Baylor/South Florida & USC/Duke

[2] Baylor (23-5) vs. [17-32] #18 South Florida (21-6) - Thursday 8pm - Baylor is coming off shutout wins over Bryant and #29 LSU while South Florida blanked #63 Boise State and #15 Virginia Tech. This is South Florida's first ever trip to the Round of 16 while Baylor is back for the 14th consecutive year. 

Doubles Records: Baylor 25-2, South Florida 22-5

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Baylor 86, South Florida 82

NCAA 2nd Round - South Florida & Columbia Pull Off Upsets - Other Seeds Advance

After a wild and crazy first round of the NCAA Tournament, we had a more tame second round with 9 of the 16 matches being shutouts. 14 of the top 16 seeds advanced with Columbia and South Florida pulling off the mild upsets.

#17 Columbia punched its second ever ticket to the Round of 16 with a 4-1 win over #14 Ole Miss. Columbia took the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 but Ole Miss would take four opening sets in singles. Ole Miss's Nik Scholtz would even the match at 1-1 with a straight set win over Winston Lin at #1 but Columbia's Ashok Narayana and Shawn Hadavi would close out their respective matches in straight sets at 3 and 5 to put Columbia up 3-1. Columbia's Dragos Ignat, Mike Vermeer, and Bert Vancura would each take the 2nd sets after dropping the first and in a race to the finish line it'd be Vancura that would provide the clincher with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win at #6.

NCAA 1st Round Previews: USC & Duke Regionals

USC Regional
Marks Stadium - Los Angeles, CA

[7] USC (22-4) vs. [49-64] Idaho (16-11) - Friday 4pm - The Vandals are in the NCAAs for the 2nd year in a row after beating Northern Arizona 4-2 in the Big Sky Championship. #8 USC got the Pac 12's automatic bid after beating #23 Stanford 4-3 in the Pac 12 Championship.

Doubles Records: USC 15-11, Idaho 15-12

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: USC 86, Idaho 71

Friday Recap: Georgia Tech Does It Again, UNC Rallies Past Duke, Big 12, Pac 12, & More

Another action packed day of college tennis is in the books and it was the ACC giving us the 2 best matches of the day as Georgia Tech and North Carolina both pulled out 4-3 thrillers.

I'm big fan of the schools that take the time to put an audio or video interview out on twitter shortly after the match finished.  TCU has done a great job all year getting a 30-second interview with David Roditi out on twitter and the last few days Georgia Tech has done the same with Kenny Thorne.  It's always better to hear the comments from someone as opposed to reading them.  I'm also a fan of school's posting video clips of match points - just gives you a feeling that you're there and lets you see the emotion from the players after a big win.

ACC:

In one of the early matches Georgia Tech came out of the gates like a bull seeing red. GT took the doubles point by winning at 1 and 3 and then took the opening set on 4 of 6 singles courts.  GT's Eduardo Segura finished first with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Jai Corbett at #6 but VT's Joao Monteiro would trim the GT lead to 2-1 with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Nathan Rakitt at #3.  Christopher Eubanks would make it 3-1 GT with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Andreas Bjerrehus at #1.

Sun Shining On Florida Gulf Coast + A Look Back At A Few More From Sunday

Florida Gulf Coast was the big winner today as the Eagles earned its first ever NCAA berth by defeating North Florida 4-3 in the finals of the Atlantic Sun.  The teams met in the regular season 2 weeks ago with FGCU winning 7-0 but FGCU figured it wouldn't be as easy this time around despite UNF playing without its injured #1 Jack Findel-Hawkins (13.32).  The match, held in Jacksonville at UNF, started on Sunday but before the rain came UNF captured the doubles point by winning a pair of tiebreaks at 2 and 3.  Usually when you have the top 2 seeds playing for a conference championship you expect several 3-setters but all 6 singles matches finished in straight sets with no set closer than 6-4.

Thursday Recap: UNC Tops Duke, Ole Miss Fights Back, aTm Rings Up Another Win, Dawgs over Hogs

North Carolina won the big match of the day as they knocked off cross town rival #6 Duke 4-2.   The Tar Heels started off by taking the doubles point as its #3 team of Esben Hess-Olesen and Andrew Gores provided the clincher winning 8-5.  The senior duo had never played an official doubles match before today but were thrown together after fellow senior Oystein Steiro had to sit out with an injury.

Duke quickly tied the match at 1 with Chris Mengel picking up a win when Esben Hess-Olesen was retired with an injury when trailing 5-2 in the 1st.   Just a few minutes later UNC would retake the lead when Robert Kelly laid out TJ Pura 6-0, 6-1 at #6 singles.  I thought Kelly would win going in but I didn't think it'd be like that.  

Brayden Schnur would extend the UNC lead to 3-1 as the Tar Heel sophomore picked up his most impressive win of the year when he knocked off #11 Nicolas Alvarez 6-3, 6-4 at #1 singles.  Raphael Hemmeler would get Duke to within 3-2 after he scored a 7-5, 6-3 win at #3 singles over Brett Clark. 

Duke needed both of the final matches but UNC wouldn't even give them 1 as Ronnie Schneider came back from a set down to beat Jason Tahir at #2 and just moments later Jack Murray would finish off Bruno Semenzato at #4.  

Thursday Preview: Duke/UNC, LSU/aTm, Ole Miss/S Carolina, UGA/ARK

Pretty decent schedule of matches for a Thursday with Duke making the 10 mile trip to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina plus at least 2 of the matches in the SEC should be competitive.  I have the live scoring links below so follow along when they get underway.

#6 Duke (19-3) at #16 North Carolina (16-8) - 3pm est - Live Scoring - North Carolina leads the overall series by a wide margin (89-38) but Duke has won 4 of the last 5 so for North Carolina's sake it's a good thing that Brayden Schnur came back last week.   The Tar Heels went 4-3 in Schnur's absense but upon his return they were able to beat both Boston College and Notre Dame last weekend.  Duke also beat BC and Notre Dame last weekend so both teams are currently riding 2 match winning streaks.

Duke is 16-6 in doubles however they just recently changed doubles pairings after dropping 3 in a row.  Duke switched up its #1 and #2 teams by pairing Nicolas Alvarez with Jason Tahir and Josh Levine with Raphael Hemmeler.  Previously Alvarez and Hemmeler have been teamed up as had Tahir and Levine.   North Carolina is 18-6 in doubles and they've won the point the last 3 times out.

Friday Recap: Mississippi State Upsets #6 Georgia, Hokies Gut Out A Win, + More Results

The big upset of the day came in Starkville as the Bulldogs from Mississippi State upset the Bulldogs from Georgia 4-2.  Mississippi State took the doubles point for the 16th time this year and is now 11-0 in doubles at home.  State fell a break behind at both #1 and #3 but managed to turn both courts around and would clinch the point with a win at #1 over the #1 ranked team in the country.

Mississippi State kept the momentum going during singles play and jumped out to early break leads on 5 of 6 courts.

Mississippi State's Rishab Agarwal was 1st off the court with a 6-2, 6-2 win at #5 singles over Nick Wood in a match that was pretty lopsided the entire time.  Georgia's Wayne Montgomery would cut the deficit to 2-1 with a 7-6, 6-2 at #2 singles over Juan Cruz Estevarena.  Montgomery fell behind 5-3 in the 1st set but would break Estevarena at 4-5 and 5-6 to force the breaker then after jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the TB he took it 7-4.