Chaotic Sunday - SMU, Texas, and Stanford Pull Off Upsets

What a crazy day it was on Sunday with not one, not two, but three regional hosts going down. The day started off in College Station with the resumption of Saturday's match between Texas A&M and Texas and it finished in Lubbock with SMU kicking the door down and stunning Texas Tech.

When the season started if you told me that Texas would be in Tulsa for the NCAA Round of 16 I would have told you to go see a doctor. Well Texas made a believer of me and many today after going into enemy territory and knocking off Texas A&M in a 4-3 thriller.

The match originally began on Saturday but after Texas A&M took the doubles point the match was stopped early in singles due to rain. Play resumed Sunday morning at 11am central and within a matter of minutes Texas had five first sets in the bag after Rodrigo Banzer, Adrian Ortiz, and George Goldhoff closed out sets on 4, 2, and 1.

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.

NCAA First/Second Round Previews: Virginia & Oklahoma State Regionals

Virginia Regional
Snyder Tennis Center - Charlottesville, VA

[1] Virginia (24-4) vs. [49-64] Monmouth (11-9) - Saturday Noon ET - Virginia is the No. 1 overall seed though it got in as an at-large after losing to Wake Forest in the finals of the ACC Championship. Monmouth earned its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth after coming back from 3-0 down to beat Quinnipiac in the finals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). 

Doubles Records: Virginia 24-4, Monmouth 11-8

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Virginia 86, Monmouth 72

Friday Recap: Baylor Stuns Okie State, Oklahoma Hold Off Texas, Chalk at the B1G, San Diego/Pepperdine To Meet in WCC Finals, Farewell to UMBC & Hartford

Every year there are a handful of teams that play their way into the NCAA Tournament and after Baylor's performance today we can add another team to that list. Baylor came in to today's match against Oklahoma State firmly on the bubble and most likely needed a win to earn its spot in the NCAAs.

Due to the inclement weather the match was moved indoors and since there was a log-jam of matches to be played they played singles first. Oklahoma State won the regular season meeting less than two weeks ago in a match that was played indoors in Stillwater so you figured they had to feel pretty confident about their chances.

Thursday Recap: UCSB and Cal Poly to Meet in Big West Finals, Big Ten & WCC Undereway

The top two seeds at the Big West Tournament advanced to the championship match with No. 1 UC Santa Barbara shutting out No. 4 UC Irvine while No. 2 Cal Poly gutted out a 4-2 win over No. 3 UC Davis. UCSB and Cal Poly met in the regular season finale last Saturday with UCSB coming out on top by a 5-2 score in a match that was played at Cal Poly.

UCSB took the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 then the Gauchos picked up straight set wins from Morgan Mays, Cody Rakela, and Teague Hamilton at 3, 5, and 6. UCSB was in control at No. 2 when it was abandoned due to the clinch while Irvine was up at No. 1 and No. 4 had just split sets.

Friday Recap: UCLA and Cal Win Out West, Rain Hampers Play in the Southeast, Ohio State and Penn State deliver in the Big Ten, & More

It was an extremely long day of tennis in Columbia, South Carolina, as rain pushed the schedule at the SEC Tournament back significantly and ultimately shifted play indoors. One of the opening matches of the day, which started at 9am ET, would be a barnburner as South Carolina was trying to pull off its third top-20 upset in the last five days.

The Gamecocks started off the morning by taking the doubles point over No. 13 Texas A&M with Gabriel Friedrich and Harrison O'Keefe winning the deciding tiebreak at No. 1 by a 7-1 score.

Texas A&M rebounded in singles by taking four opening sets but South Carolina's Andrew Schafer was the first one to finish after he defeated Jordi Arconada 6-1, 7-5 at No. 3.

TCU Too Good for South Florida & Princeton Punches Penn State

The featured match of the day took place in Tampa as No. 3 TCU rolled into town to face No. 17 South Florida. South Florida got the win at No. 1 doubles but TCU came back and won at No. 2 and No. 3 with Hudson Blake and Reese Stalder clinching the point 7-6(1) at No. 2.

Each team picked up three first sets in singles but South Florida struck first when Justin Roberts closed out Eduardo Nava 6-2, 6-2 at No. 4. TCU freshman Alex Rybakov put the Horned Frogs back ahead 2-1 when he ran through Dominic Cotrone 6-3, 6-2 at No. 2 and a short while later Jerry Lopez would make it 3-1 with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Peter Bertran at No. 5.

Saturday Recap: Cal Wins The Big Slam; Penn State Still Unbeaten, Mississippi State Rides the Wave

It was Big Slam Saturday at The Farm and as expected Cal and Stanford gave us another 4-3 classic. Last season each team won at the other's place and this year is starting off the same after Cal gutted out a 4-3 win in a match that took 3 hours and 59 minutes.

The 52-minute doubles point was extremely tight with breaks hard to come by at both #1 and #3. Cal's #2 team of Andre Goransson and Billy Griffith jumped out to a 5-2 lead but Stanford's Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski would come back and take five straight to win it 7-5.

The match at #1 stayed on serve until Stanford's Maciek Romanowicz double faulted on match point at 30-40 to give Cal's Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat the 7-5 win.

When A Win Isn't A Win

We are coming up one the 1 year anniversary of one of the odder things that has happened in college tennis in the last several years.

Last year on March 28th, Illinois and Penn State played an exhausting dual match in State College that lasted just under 6 hours (4 indoor courts) and ended with the Illini coming out on top thanks to Julian Childers coming back from a set down to win in 3. After the match each coach praised the other team and talked about how great a match it was - I mean why wouldn't they after spending almost 6 hours together.

So why is all this so strange?  It's strange because 5 days later the Big 10 overturned the decision due to a Penn State protest based off Illinois playing it's highest ranked player, Jared Hiltzik, at #1 singles. Hiltzik had been out of action for 6 weeks recovering from an injury and was soundly beaten by Leonard Stakhovsky in his return to the court.  The Big 10 coaches felt that playing a less than 100% Hiltzik at #1 was a line-up stack giving the Illini a better chance at each of the remaining courts.  The coaches felt that Hiltzik should have played at 2 with Farris Gosea at 1.

UPDATE: After writing this I found out some more details that I wanted to share. The Big 10, like several other conferences, requires the coaches to submit their lineups early in the week for the upcoming matches and after the submission there is a challenge process.  It was during the challenge process, several days before the match, that the other Big 10 coaches voted down the Illinois lineup and made them change it to show Gosea at 1 and Hiltzik at 2.  Despite having its originally submitted lineup struck down, Illinois decided to use it anyway on principal (as stated at the bottom) and that's why the protest was made and followed through on.  Even if Penn State hadn't protested the result it could have been challenged by any other coach in the conference.  I still don't necessarily agree with it but now I fully understand it and can respect the decision made by the Big 10.   The statement at the very bottom from April 2 alluded to the protest but I originally read it to mean the lineup was protested after the fact when in reality it was protested during the challenge process days before the match was played. 

Roll Tide Roll - Bama Upsets #9 Ole Miss 4-2 + a few other results anda look towards Sunday

Who saw this one coming?  Alabama shocks #9 Ole Miss 4-2 in T-Town.  The same Alabama team that came into the match with an 8-9 record with the 8 wins being over powerhouses UAB, Samford, Jackson State (4X), and Jacksonville State (2X).  The same Ole Miss team that routed a top 15 Vanderbilt team last weekend and the same team that gave #1 Oklahoma all it wanted at the National Indoors.  Total head-scratcher....

Ole Miss played well in doubles and took the point by winning at 1 and 3 but singles got off to a rough start when William Kallberg retired 3 games in at #4 singles.  The Bama recap said it was due to injury but didn't specify what kind of injury but it must have been severe enough to force him to throw in the towel.  Ole Miss regained the lead when Stefan Lindmark wiped the court with Danny Kerznerman 6-1, 6-0 at #2 but then Stuart Kenyon, who came in with a 5-7 dual match record, did the same and cleaned Zvonimir Babic's clock 6-1, 6-2 at #5.  The biggest shocker came at #1 singles when Bama freshman Korey Lovett, who was 6-6 in dual match play, thumped #60 Nik Scholtz 6-2, 6-2.  It was only Scholtz's 2nd dual match loss of the year and just his 3rd in the last 2 years.  With the Tide up 3-2 it would be Bama junior Becker O'Shaughnessey who would seal the deal with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #3 singles over Gustav Hansson.

Stanford wins the Big Slam, Ohio State makes it 200 straight, Wake toogood, Ivy League no joke + My Sunday Preview

I knew it'd be hard for today's matches to follow up those from Friday but while a few of them came up short in the drama department the one that didn't was the "Big Slam" in Berkeley as Stanford pulled out a classic 4-3 win over rival Cal.  

Cal jumped out to the early lead by taking the doubles point with a 7-5 win at #3 doubles in the clinching match.  Stanford welcomed freshman David Hsu back into the singles lineup at 5 which shifted Nolan Paige to 6 while Cal made a switch at 5 and 6 and moved Greg Bayane up from 6 to 5 and dropped Wikberg from 5 to 6.  After dropping the doubles point the momentum shifted back to Stanford in singles as the Cardinal took 4 opening sets and managed to finish 3 of them off in straights as Tom Fawcett, John Morrissey, and "Rollin" Nolan Paige won at 1, 3, 6 to give Stanford a 3-1 lead.  Cal would answer back with wins from Filip Bergevi and Greg Bayane at 2 and 5 to tie it up at 3.  

All focus was centered on #4 singles where Cal freshman J.T. Nishimura had opened up a 5-2 lead in the 3rd set over Stanford junior Maciek Romanowicz and Nishimura was serving for the match. Nishimura fell behind 15-40 in his service game and after getting it back to the deciding point (40-40), which was also a match point, he would put a shot into the net to give Romanowicz the break. Romanowicz went up 40-15 on his 3-5 service game but then Nishimura hit a two-handed forehand winner to make it 40-30 and followed that up with a backhand winner past a drawn in Romanowicz to bring up the deciding point (40-40).  Nishimura chose the ad-court to receive the serve on what would be his final match point and Romanowicz landed his 1st serve out wide and as the outstretched arm of Nishimura deflected it back in play Romanowicz closed in toward the net and hit a volley into the open court for the hold.  Nishimura would now serve for the match for a 2nd time up 5-4 and he would quickly get broke at love as Romanowicz continued to play aggressively while Nishimura tightened up and had difficulty keeping the ball in play.  Romanowicz would then hold at 40-15 to go up 6-5 and would then race out to an 0-40 lead on the Nishimura serve. After a Romanowicz error made it 15-40 Nishimura wouldn't be able to keep the next one in play and with that Stanford had stunned its rival 4-3.

Hokie Hokie Hi, Dunk City Upsets the U, Cowboy Up, Ivy Power

Saturday didn't have any Top 10 showdowns but there were several solid matches between ranked teams.  The biggest upset of the day, in terms of ranking, came in Blacksburg as #37 Virginia Tech took it to #22 Penn State 4-1. The Hokies took 10 of 11 sets in singles after dropping the doubles point.  Penn State has now lost 2 of its last 3 and is looking at a tough road next weekend when they head to Chicago for the National Indoors against the best of the best with its opening match against #1 USC.


VT Recap
PSU Recap

#37 Virginia Tech 4, #22 Penn State 1

Singles

1. #35 Amerigo Contini (VT) def. Leonard Stakhovsky (PSU) 7-5, 6-3

2. #61 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT) def. Alex Fennell (PSU) 6-2, 6-2

3. Joao Monteiro (VT) vs. Matt Barry (PSU) 6-3, 5-5, unfinished

4. Hunter Koontz (VT) def. Roman Trkulja (PSU) 6-2, 6-2

5. Aws Laaribi (PSU) vs. Edoardo Tessaro (VT) 2-6, 7-6, unfinished

6. #94 Florian Nicoud (VT) def. Nika Dolidze (PSU) 6-2, 6-4

Order of Finish: 4, 2, 6, 1

Doubles

1. Andreas Bjerrehus/Amerigo Contini (VT) def. Matt Barry/Alex Fennell (PSU) 6-2

2. Leonard Stakhovsky/Aws Laaribi (PSU) def. Jai Corbett/Joao Monteiro (VT) 7-6 (7-5)

3. Michael Reilly/Roman Trkulja (PSU) def. Hunter Koontz/Florian Nicoud (VT) 7-5

Order of Finish: 1, 2