D1 ITA Regional Championships - Week 1

Qualifying for November's National Indoor Intercollegiates in New York City is underway at 8 different sites across the country. There are 12 ITA Regions on both the men's and women's sides with the winner at each location earning a spot in the main draw at the last big event on the fall college tennis schedule. The other 16 regionals (8 men/8 women) will take place next week.

Down at the bottom of this post I have a list of those that have already qualified for the NIICs so I wouldn't expect to see any of them participating at an ITA Regional (unless they are trying to qualify for doubles). Players must at least make the quarterfinals to be eligible for an at-large entry into the NIICs.

Below are the top 8 seeds at each of the 8 regional along with a link to streaming video (if available).

Koepfer & Di Lorenzo Rise To The Top, Takeda Takes the Jack Kramer, Andrews Shakes Hands With Dickie V, Fennell The Top Dog in Athens, Michnev Bags #1

It was Championship Sunday at the National Indoor Intercollegiates and Tulane senior Dominik Koepfer and Ohio State freshman Francesca Di Lorenzo would claim the singles championships while Texas Tech's Hugo Dojas and Felipe Soares and North Carolina's Hayley Carter and Whitney Kay would win the doubles championships.

Below are the final scores from all championship matches along with photos of the winners of the main draw events courtesy of the ITA. Here is the ITA's recap of the day's events and here is Colette Lewis's recap on Zoo Tennis which has more insight in the singles matches.

Dominik Koepfer makes history as he becomes first @GreenWaveMTenn player to win #NIIC national title! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/ByG7MmBHOq

— ITA Tennis (@ITATennis) November 15, 2015

NIIC Day 3: Goransson Gets Past Eubanks; Koepfer Overpowers Monteiro

The singles finals are set at the National Indoor Intercollegiates and it'll be Cal's Andre Goransson taking on Tulane's Dominik Koepfer on the men's side and Clemson's Joana Eidukonyte meeting Ohio State's Francesca Di Lorenzo on the women's side.

Cal's Andre Goransson got the only break of the opening set when he broke Chris Eubanks's 5-5 service game and then he served it out to take the set 7-5.  Below is a clip of Goransson's break (FYI, I recorded all the clips off ESPN3 so some are better than others but at least it's something)

The Georgia Tech sophomore would bounce back in the second set by breaking Goransson twice and he quickly took a 6-1 set to force a third.

Eubanks broke Goransson to start the third set by unloading on a forehand on the deciding point however Goransson would return the favor and break back from 15-40 to even it at 1-1. After a couple of quick holds it looked like Eubanks was going to get the break when he went up 0-40 on Goransson's 3-3 service game. Goransson quickly got it back to the 40-40 deciding point and then he used his forehand to pull Eubanks off the court and followed that up with a volley that Eubanks couldn't steer into play. Goransson had fought off each of the 4 break points and now led 4-3 and in fact he wouldn't lose another point on his serve the rest of the way.

Both guys would hold fairly easily up until Eubanks's 5-6 service game.  Eubanks went up 30-0 but on the next point Goransson came in and hit a backhand volley that landed right on the line and with Eubanks standing almost on top of the ball he got handcuffed and sent his return deep to make it 30-15. Eubanks then pushed a forehand wide to make it 30-30 and then Goransson smacked a nice deep service return that Eubanks put into the net and with that Goransson had 2 match points. Eubanks hit a forehand winner to fight off the first match point but on the second MP Goransson got a nice return on Eubanks's second serve and a few points later he'd steer a backhand up the line that Eubanks would then put into the net and that was all she wrote - Goransson 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.

NIIC Day 2: Monteiro Upsets #1 Seed Kwiatkowski, Koepfer Only Seed Left

A day after the #1 seed on the women's side went down the men's #1 followed suit as Virginia Tech senior Joao Monteiro upset Virginia junior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 6-1, 7-6(4) in the NIIC quarterfinals. Kwiatkowski had beat Monteiro 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 back on September 20th in the finals of the UVA Ranked 1+1 but Monteiro was able to turn the tide today.

Stanford sophomore Tom Fawcett upset the #2 seed TCU sophomore Cameron Norrie 6-4, 7-6(8) so that means we'll be guaranteed to have a first time major winner on Sunday. Norrie of course won the Oracle Masters back in September while Kwiatkowski won the All-Americans in October.

Cal's Andre Goransson came back from a set down to win his Round of 16 match over Ohio State's Mikael Torpegaard then in his quarterfinal match he saw a 6-2, 5-1 lead evaporate as Texas A&M's Arthur Rinderknech won 4 straight games to even it at 5-5. Goransson managed to break on the deciding point to go up 6-5 and then he quickly served it out quickly to close out the 6-2, 7-5 win.

Tulane's Dominik Koepfer rolled over Wake Forest's Skander Mansouri 6-2, 6-2 in the Round of 16 then he followed that up with a gritty 7-6(6), 7-5 win over Illinois's Jared Hiltzik. Hiltzik had a set point in the first set tiebreak on his serve but Koepfer managed to win the last 3 points to take the set. In the second set Hiltzik led 5-3 but Koepfer battled back and took the next 4 games to close out the win.

Georgia Tech sophomore Chris Eubanks won both his matches in straight sets. He took out Ohio State junior Herkko Pollanen 7-5, 6-2 in the opening match and then got past Stanford's Tom Fawcett in the quarters by almost the same score of 6-2, 7-5. Fawcett led 5-2 in the second before Eubanks reeled off 5 straight to close it out.

As a reminder ESPN3's coverage will start on Saturday morning at 9am as they'll broadcast both the men's and women's singles and doubles semifinals. Here is the Saturday order of play with all 4 singles semis (2 men/2 women) being played on court 9 starting with the women.

All main draws results are below:

NIIC Day 1 - Top Men's Singles Seeds Roll, #1 Dubs Ousted

6 of the top 8 seeds on the men's side won their opening round matches while 7 of the top 8 on the women's side did though the 1 that lost on the women's side was the #1 seed Virginia's Danielle Collins.

The men's doubles #1 seed Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger were upset in the 2nd round by Texas Tech's Hugo Dojas and Felipe Soares 7-6(5), 6-4.

Links to bookmark:

ITA host page
Live Scoring
Live Scoring (Mobile)
Live Blog
RadioTennis - Live Tennis Chat
ESPN3
NIIC Facts 

NIIC - Men's 1st Round:
[1] Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (UVA) def. Benjamin Lock (FSU) 6-2, 6-4
Konrad Zieba (NU) def. Max Hinnisdaels (AUB) 6-4, 6-2
[5] Hugo Di Feo (OSU) def. Kevin Konfederak (GG) 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3
Joao Monteiro (VT) def. Diego Hidalgo (UF) 7-6(6), 6-3
[3] Dominik Koepfer (TUL) def. Chris Diaz (OSU) 6-1, 6-4
Skander Mansouri (WF) def. Guillermo Nunez (TCU) 6-3, 7-5
[8] Jared Hiltzik (ILL) def. Uros Petronijevic (SD) 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-2
David Wilczynski (ST) def. Shawn Hadavi (CU) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
Andre Goransson (CAL) def. Diogo Rocha (DU) 6-1, 6-2
Mikael Torpegaard (OSU) def. [6] Roberto Cid (USF) 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-4
Austin Smith (UGA) def. Martin Redlicki (UCLA) 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-2
[4] Arthur Rinderknech (aTm) def. Dovydas Sakinis (DRT) 6-3, 6-4
Herkko Pollanen (OSU) def. Sam Monette (IU) 6-4, 6-4
Chris Eubanks (GT) def. [7] Nicolas Alvarez (Duke) 6-4, 6-2
Tom Fawcett (ST) def. Quentin Monaghan (ND) 6-2, 6-4
[2] Cameron Norrie (TCU) def. Alex Ghilea (OU) 6-0, 6-3

National Indoor Intercollegiate Draws

The draws are out and we are less than 24 hours away from first serve of the 2015 National Indoor Intercollegiates in the NYC. The tournament starts on Thursday morning and finishes on Sunday. ESPN3 will have streaming video of the semifinals and finals on Saturday and Sunday. Ken Thomas of RadioTennis.com will broadcast all weekend, the USTA has a live blog that will run, and Columbia will provide live scoring so as a fan you should be covered from all angles.

Links to bookmark:

ITA host page
Live Scoring
Live Scoring (Mobile)
Live Blog
RadioTennis
ESPN3
NIIC Facts 

Below are the all the draws and my google doc has the men's draw sorted by preseason ITA ranking, seed, UTR, school, and country. I'll have the women's draw sorted by those same things shortly.

NIIC Selections, UMBC Cut, Top 20 College Tennis Facilities

The National Indoor Intercollegiate selections were released today and while they were pretty straight forward there were a few last minute changes.

In the men's singles draw, Florida's Diego Hidalgo got in as a 7th at-large due to North Carolina's Ronnie Schneider pulling out. I know Ronnie has had shoulder issues in the past so that could be why he's out.

Georgia's Austin Smith (14.41) got the at-large selection that was reserved for the player with the highest UTR.

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez, who was the Oracle Masters Runner-Up, got the ITA's wild card and Illinois's Jared Hiltzik was awarded the USTA's wild card despite not participating in any collegiate events this fall.