Saturday Recap: Mississippi State Routs Illinois, Wake Holds Off Michigan, USC Pulls Away From Ga Tech, & More

It's hard to believe that going into the fall Matt Roberts only had two returning players from his 2014-15 squad yet here we sit today with Mississippi State heading to the Round of 16 after routing Illinois 4-0.

State got off to a quick start in doubles and went up early breaks at No. 2 and No. 3. State's No. 3 team of Rishab Agarwal and Niclas Braun would win four straight games to go up 5-2 and they'd end up winning 6-3. State's Trevor Foshey and Luka Sucevic led 4-2 at No. 2 but Illinois's Alex Jesse and Aiden Jiang would end up breaking back and forcing a tiebreak. Before the tiebreak really got going State's No. 1 team of Mate Cutura and Vaughn Hunter would break serve to win 7-5 and clinch the doubles point. It was the first time since mid-February that State had won the doubles point in back-to-back matches.

Friday Men's Recap - LSU and Oregon Pull Off Seeding Upsets

The opening day of the NCAA Tournament is in the books and as you can see from the scores below there were a few surprises. All the top seeds cruised with only Illinois yielding a point while a pair of 33-48 seeds pulled off mild upsets.

Friday Finals:
[3] UCLA def. Weber State 4-0
[4] TCU def. Jackson State 4-0
[6] Wake Forest def. Coastal Carolina 4-0
[10] USC def. UNLV 4-0
[11] Oklahoma def. UT Arlington 4-0
[12] Texas A&M def. George Washington 4-0
[15] Illinois def. Western Michigan 4-1
[17-32] Texas def. Lamar 4-0
[17-32] San Diego def. Vanderbilt 4-0
[17-32] Michigan def. East Tennessee State 4-3
[17-32] Georgia Tech def. UC Santa Barbara 4-1
[17-32] Mississippi State def. Memphis 4-1
[33-48] LSU def. Rice 4-3
[33-48] Oregon def. Tulsa 4-1

NCAA First/Second Round Previews: Georgia & USC Regionals

Georgia Regional
Dan Magill Tennis Complex - Athens, GA

[7] Georgia Bulldogs (20-4) vs. [49-64] South Carolina State Bulldogs (12-8) - Saturday 1pm ET - Georgia was awarded an at-large berth after falling to Florida in the finals of the SEC Tournament while South Carolina State got the MEAC's automatic berth for the eighth year in a row after defeating Florida A&M in the finals. SCSU played five teams that were ranked during the season and went 0-5 while being outscored 32-1. SCSU will be making its 14th all-time appearance at the NCAAs with a record of 0-13. 

Doubles Records: Georgia 16-7, South Carolina State 10-10

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Georgia 84, South Carolina State 74

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.

Friday Recap: UVA Too Strong For Wake, UGA Rolls Arky, UNC Holds Off GT

The two biggest matches of the day didn't end up being as close as I thought with both No. 1 Virginia and No. 6 Georgia rolling to victories over No. 7 Wake Forest and No. 12 Arkansas.

Virginia won its 13h straight regular season ACC Championship with a 5-2 win over Wake Forest in front of over 1100 fans. It looked like Wake Forest might take the early lead but Virginia was able to hang on in doubles. Wake's Romain Bogaerts and Dennis Uspensky won 6-2 at No. 3 but Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger would break on the deciding point to go up 5-3 at No. 2. Kwiatkowski went up 40-0 on his 5-3 service but would double fault two times in a row to make it 40-30. Kwiatkowski would land a first set and then a Styslinger volley at the net would force a Wake error to clinch the 6-3 win.

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).

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.

Friday Recap: Drake Raps Past Iowa, SEC & ACC Play Underway, Lobos Top BYU

While conference play got underway in the SEC and ACC there was a non-conference battle brewing in Des Moines between #36 Drake and #33 Iowa. The two schools, separated by just 115 miles, are the only two schools in the state of Iowa that play Division 1 men's tennis so bragging rights were at stake Friday night. A boisterous crowd of close to 200, with a decent amount of black and gold, was on hand to see if Drake could make it five in a row over the Hawkeyes.

Drake got off to a good start at #3 doubles when Ben Stride and Calum MacGeoch jumped out to a 3-0 lead on Iowa's Robin Haden and Nils Hallestrand. Drake would hold on the deciding point to stretch the lead to 4-1 and then break again for 5-1. MacGeoch would serve it out from 40-30 to give Drake the 6-1 win in 24 minutes.

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.

NCAA 1st Round Previews: Virginia & Ole Miss Regionals

Virginia Regional
Snyder Tennis Center - Charlottesville, VA

[3] Virginia (23-3) vs. [49-64] St. John's (15-8) - Friday  1pm - #3 Virginia received the ACC's automatic bid after beating #12 Wake Forest 4-2 in the ACC Championship while St. John's got the Big East's automatic bid after defeating Marquette 4-2 in the Big East Championship. St. John's finished the year on a 6-match winning streak and won 11 of its final 12.  The Red Storm went 0-6 against ranked teams on the year.

Doubles Records: Virginia 23-3, St. John's 11-11

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Virginia 87, St. John's 78

Saturday Preview: Conference Semifinal Saturday + Pac 12 Championship

It's go time for the ACC, Big 10, and Big 12 with each conference down to the semifinals of their conference tournaments plus the Pac 12 has reached its Championship match.

ACC:

#5 [1] Virginia vs. #16 [4] North Carolina - 10am est - Virginia won both the regular season meetings with the Wahoos beating UNC 6-1 in Charlottesville and blanking them 4-0 at the National Indoors in Chicago.  Neither match was particularly close though the match at UVA was the better of the two with UNC taking 3 sets and losing several 7-5.

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.

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:

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.

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.”

Gators pull one out, Bulldogs bring the bite, Duke too tough, Big 12 rolls

The weekend is here and it was a fantastic Friday of tennis with the match of the day taking place in front of a national ESPN3 audience as Florida went into Tallahassee and pulled out a 4-2 win.

Florida State picked up the doubles point by winning at 1 and 3 but Florida came out swinging in singles taking 4 1st sets.  After FSU extended the lead to 2-0 with a Cristian Gonzalez Mendez win at 5, Florida started finishing off courts 1 by 1 with Gordon Watson winning at 4 then Chase Perez-Blanco at 6.  With the score tied at 2-2, each of the remaining matches went to a 3rd set and after Elliott Orkin closed out Michael Rinaldi at #3 to give Florida its first lead at 3-2 it appeared that Maxx Lipman would be the one to seal the victory.  Lipman was serving up 4-2 in the 3rd but Benjamin Lock got the break, then held, then broke again and served for the match up 5-4 40-15. Lock hit a serve out wide in the deuce court that Lipman returned from outside the doubles alley and with the ball floating back towards the singles line Lock decided to let it go thinking it would fall out. The ball ended up landing right on the middle of the line and 2 points later Lipman had it back on serve. With that match into a 3rd set tiebreak over at #2 singles Florida's Diego Hidalgo was serving for the match up 6-5 40-0.  FSU's Marco Nunez fought off 1 match point but on the next point he sliced a shot down the line and followed it in to the net and then watched as Hidalgo hit a forehand cross court to win it for Florida.  Gators 4 Seminoles 2 FINAL

Look ahead to Friday - GT/UGA, FSU/FLA, TN/DUKE, and more

After a slow week things kick back into high gear tomorrow with the start of the Women's National Team Indoors and with a fairly full slate on the men's side.

Georgia at Georgia Tech (5pm est) - The Bulldogs have won 27 of the last 28 in the series but Georgia Tech looks better this year than they have in a while. These teams just met 2 weeks ago at the MLK Invitational in Atlanta with Georgia Tech taking 4 of 7 singles matches and 2 of 3 in doubles in the hidden dual format.  Georgia's Wayne Montgomery didn't participate in the weekend event so with him back in the lineup and possibly playing at #1 I think the Bulldogs will find a way to get to 4 points first however I think Georgia Tech will make it interesting and puts some pressure on Georgia especially at the 5 and 6 spots.  

Projected Line-Up

1.  Wayne Montgomery (UGA) vs. Nathan Rakitt (GT)

2.  Nathan Pasha (UGA) vs. Chris Eubanks (GT)

3.  Austin Smith (UGA) vs. Eduardo Segura (GT)

4.  Nick Wood (UGA) vs. Michael Kay (GT)

5.  Ben Wagland (UGA) vs. Carlos Benito (GT)

6.  Paul Oosterbaan (UGA) vs. Cole Fiegel (GT)

Florida State at Florida (5pm est) - The Gators have won 55 of 75 in the series and 7 in a row going back to 2007.  I could easily see each team picking up 3 points in singles so if that happens whoever takes the doubles point could win a tight one.  I'm leaning toward Florida at 1, 2, and 4 singles and FSU at 3, 5, and 6. I'll go with Florida in a squeaker.   

Projected Line-Up

1.  Benjamin Lock (FSU) vs. Maxx Lipman (FLA)

2.  Marco Nunez (FSU) vs. Elliott Orkin (FLA)

3.  Michael Rinaldi (FSU) vs. Gordon Watson (FLA)

4.  Cristian Gonzalez Mendez (FSU) vs. Diego Hidalgo (FLA)

5.  Jose Gracia (FSU) vs. Oliver Landert (FLA)

6.  Terrell Whitehurst (FSU) vs. Chase Perez-Blanco (FLA)

Tennessee at Duke (6pm est) - Tennessee has won 13 of 21 in this series with 2 of those wins coming last year with the latter coming in the 2nd round of the NCAAs.  Tennessee comes into this one on a 2 match losing streak after losing a heartbreaker to Columbia and then dropping one to Oklahoma State while Duke comes in undefeated and coming off back-to-back road wins last weekend over Illinois and Northwestern.  Tennessee is starting 4 freshmen while Duke starts 3 seniors and 2 juniors so I think Duke's experience comes through in this one and they get it done at home in a 4-1/4-2 type of score.

Projected Line-Up
1.  Mikelis Libietis (TN) vs. Jason Tahir (DU)
2.  Hunter Reese (TN) vs. Nicolas Alvarez (DU)
3.  Igor Smelyanski (TN) vs. Raphael Hemmeler (DU)
4.  Luis Valero (TN) vs. Bruno Semenzato (DU)
5.  Jack Schipanski (TN) vs. Chris Mengel (DU)
6.  Jess Jones (TN) vs. Josh Levine (DU)

South Florida at Oklahoma (6:30pm est) - South Florida came into this season with some high expectations but they've hit a rough patch and lost 2 of its last 3 while Oklahoma has won easily each time out.  I don't see Oklahoma letting up and they'll win going away.

Projected Line-Up
1.  Roberto Cid (USF) vs. Andrew Harris (OU)
2.  Ignacio Gonzalez (USF) vs. Axel Alvarez (OU)
3.  Oliver Pramming (USF) vs. Dane Webb (OU)
4.  Sasha Gozun (USF) vs. Spencer Papa (OU)
5.  Justin Roberts (USF) vs. Jose Salazar (OU)
6.  Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF) vs. Alex Ghilea (OU)


To follow each of these matches click on the live scoring links below and as you can see you'll have tennis coverage going on from 9am to probably 10 or 11pm in Charlottesville at the NTIs so get those browsers set up to have multiple courts streaming at the same time.  

As a reminder there is a tab at the top that will always have the most updated live scoring links.

Women's National Team Indoors - Charlottesville, VA

Live Scoring Link 1
Live Scoring Link 2
Live Video Link for courts with *
ITA Event Page
Master Lineups

[6] Alabama vs. Miami - 9am est.
*[3] North Carolina vs. Oklahoma State - 9am est.
*[4] Duke vs. TCU - 12pm est.
[5] California vs. Vanderbilt - 12pm est.
*[1] UCLA vs. Kentucky - 3:30pm est.
[8] Georgia vs. Michigan - 3:30pm est.
[2] Florida vs. Clemson - 6:30pm est.
*[7] Virginia vs. USC - 6:30pm est.

*Live streaming video only available on main courts

Men's Matches:
Murray State at Indiana - 9am est - Live Scoring
UAB at Auburn - 12pm est - Live Scoring
Northern Arizona at Arizona - 12pm est - Live Scoring
Middle Tennessee State at Vanderbilt - 3pm est - Live Scoring
Wake Forest at South Carolina - 4pm est - Live Scoring
Florida at Florida State - 5pm est - Live Scoring & ESPN3
Georgia at Georgia Tech - 5pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Boise State at Northwestern - 5:30pm est - Live Scoring
Tennessee at Duke - 6pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming & Tennessee Blog 
UAB at Auburn - 6pm est - Live Scoring
Oregon at Indiana - 6pm est - Live Scoring
South Florida at Oklahoma - 6:30pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming 
New Mexico at TCU - 6:30pm est - Live Scoring
Kentucky at Illinois - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Washington at Texas - 7pm est - Live Scoring
Baylor at Tulsa - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming
Marquette at Iowa - 7pm est - Live Scoring
Cal vs. San Francisco (Bay Club SF) - 12:30am est/9:30pm pst - Cal Twitter