Oracle ITA Masters & Oracle Cup Friday Results

Oracle ITA Masters Singles - you can view doubles and consolation bracket results on the tournament's home page. 

D1 - Women's Round of 16

[1] Luisa Stefani (Pepperdine 12.26) def. [16] Ksenia Laskutova (Tulsa 10.87) 6-3, 6-1

[9] Blair Shankle (Baylor 11.48) def. [8] Viktoriya Lushkova (Okla St 11.63) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4

[4] Ashley Lahey (Pepperdine 12.06) def. [20] Kana Daniel (Penn 10.68) 6-1, 7-5

[5] Hayley Carter (North Carolina 11.93) def. [12] Laura Gulbe (Pepperdine 11.22) 6-2, 1-6, 7-5

Oracle ITA Masters & Oracle Cup Thursday Results

The Oracle ITA Masters got underway on Thursday morning in Malibu with mixed doubles and progressed through the singles draws as the day went on. 12 of the 16 men's singles matches were won by the higher seed with Columbia's Shawn Hadavi, Old Dominion's Adam Moundir, Denver's Diogo Rocha, and Valparaiso's Jeffrey Schorsch the four lower seeds to prevail.  On the women's side the higher seed won 15 of 16 matches on Thursday with the lone seeded upset coming when Penn's Kana Daniel, seeded No. 20, defeated Rice's Katherine Ip, seeded No. 13, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.

You can view doubles and consolation bracket results on the tournament's home page. 

D1 - Men's 

[1] Yuya Ito (Texas 14.56) def. [32] Kei Ezaka (Quinnipiac 12.06) 6-4, 6-2

[16] Jack Findel-Hawkins (North Florida 13.80) def. [17] Lautaro Pane (Pepperdine 13.78) 6-4, 6-2

[8] Martin Redlicki (UCLA 14.22) def. [25] Jaime Barajas (Utah State 13.10) 7-6(3), 6-2

[9] David Biosca East Tennessee St 14.20) def. [24] Michael Feucht (Lamar 13.27) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3

[4] Ryan Peniston (Memphis 14.35) def. [29] Michael Nguyen (Army 12.45) 6-2, 6-4

Oracle ITA Masters News and Notes

The draws are out for the second Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu with this year's format differing a good bit from last year. Last year the singles field was limited to 16 players with the field selected based on preseason ITA rankings; this year the field has been expanded to 32 players with the goal to have one player per conference. The other change relates to doubles - last year there was a men's and women's doubles draw but this year those have been scrapped in favor of a mixed doubles draw.

The seeding is completely based on Universal Tennis Rating using a UTR from a few days ago. Texas freshman Yuya Ito is the top seed in the men's draw while Pepperdine sophomore Luisa Stefani is tops in the women's draw.

Oracle/ITA Masters Field Announced; Isner Survives While Myneni/McDonald Fall

The field for this year's Oracle/ITA Masters was announced today with 28 of 31 conferences sending a representative for the October 13-16 event in Malibu, California. The full selection criteria is here but in essence the top returning player from each conference was given the opportunity to participate with some accepting and others opting out. There was originally only supposed to be one wild card in each draw but there ended up being four due to the A10, Sun Belt, and SWAC not having a men's representative while the Atlantic Sun, Horizon, and Mountain West didn't have one on the women's side.

Cameron Norrie Wins The Oracle Masters + Other Tourney Results

TCU's Cameron Norrie claimed the inaugural Oracle ITA Masters with a 6-3, 7-6(2) win over Duke's Nicolas Alvarez in the finals. Norrie came out ready to play and jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Alvarez got a break back but Norrie still took the set 6-3. Norrie would lead 5-3 in the 2nd set and have a match point on the Alvarez serve but Alvarez won the 40-all deciding point to make it 5-4. Alvarez would then break from 30-40 to even it at 5-5 and then he'd hold at love to go up 6-5.  Norrie would then hold from 40-15 to send the second set to a tiebreak and the tiebreak would be all Norrie as he'd go up 4-0 and cruise to take the tiebreak 7-2.

Below is match point courtesy of the ITA's twitter:

Saturday Tourney Results - Nicolas Alvarez & Cameron Norrie Into Finals

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez and TCU's Cameron Norrie, both sophomores, will play for Oracle ITA Masters Championship on Sunday after each managed to win not once but twice on a toasty Saturday afternoon in Malibu.

Alvarez started the day off by cruising past TCU's Guillermo Nunez 6-3, 6-2 before getting all he wanted and more from Texas Tech's Felipe Soares in the semifinals.  Soares took the opening set 6-3 but Alvarez squeezed out the 2nd set in a tiebreak 7-6(7). The 3rd set was all Alvarez as he handed Soares a 3rd set bagel to close out the 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-0 win.

Norrie's path to the finals was fairly similar to Alvarez's as Norrie won his quarterfinal match in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 over Tulsa's Or Ram-Harel before getting pushed by Tulane's Dominik Koepfer in the semifinals. Koepfer took the opening set 6-1 before Norrie turned it around and took the 2nd set 6-4.  The 3rd set stayed on serve until Koepfer lost the 40-all deciding point at 4-5 and that break sent Norrie to the finals with the 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 win.

Friday Tourney Results - Upsets Galore In Malibu

It wasn't a good day to be seeded player in the men's draw of the Oracle ITA Masters with each of the 4 seeds getting taken out in the 1st round.

Georgia's Wayne Montgomery and Oklahoma's Axel Alvarez, the #1 seed, squared off for the 3rd time in the last 12 months with each having won once. Montgomery won 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 a year ago at the Southern Intercollegiates in Athens while Alvarez won 6-1, 6-1 at the NCAA Team Quarterfinals last May in Waco.  Alvarez jumped out to the early break lead but Montgomery turned it around quickly and got off the court with the 6-4, 6-2 win.

Texas Tech's Felipe Soares upset Virginia's Ryan Shane 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Shane who was the #2 seed and defending NCAA Singles Champion had beaten Soares in last year's NCAA Quarterfinals 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 but Soares got the win today.

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez ran his record against Baylor's Julian Lenz to 2-0 as the Blue Devil sophomore "upset" the #3 seed 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Alvarez won the first meeting last February in Chicago at the NTI's 6-4, 6-2.

The other upset saw Tulsa's Or Ram-Harel get past the #4 seed Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(1).

Oracle ITA Masters

We're just under a month away from the first big event of the year in college tennis which is the brand new Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu, CA.

Part of the field was announced a few months back but the rest was made known yesterday with the full list below.

Below are the anticipated preseason rankings of the men's singles participants: