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.

Friday Recap: Noles Rally Past Hokies, Upsets Galore In the SEC, Tulane Outlasts San Diego, UNF Upsets Georgia St

Friday was a wild day of tennis with several teams coming from behind to pull out thrilling wins. The biggest comeback of the day took place in Blacksburg as No. 23 Florida State appeared to be down and out against No. 40 Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech took the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 but Florida State turned it around in singles and took first sets at one through four.

FSU's Benjamin Lock cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Joao Monteiro at No. 1 but Virginia Tech answered with a 7-6, 6-3 win from Aaron Gomez at No. 6.

Thursday Recap: Buckeyes Top The Bulls, Columbia Wins at SMU, & Action Gets Underway in San Diego

After a calm Wednesday the pace picked up on Thursday with Ohio State taking on South Florida while the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic got underway with four close matches at two different sites.

No. 4 Ohio State made its outdoors debut in Tampa and despite getting tested the Buckeyes still had enough in the tank to get past No. 16 South Florida 4-3.  Ohio State's Chris Diaz didn't play in doubles (reasons unknown) but the Buckeyes still managed to win at No. 1 and No. 2. Diaz's normal partner, Hugo Di Feo, and Matt Mendez led 5-3 at No. 3 when the point was clinched.

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.

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

Bears Sic 'Em, Oklahoma Rallies Past Columbia, Toreros Hold Off Drake, Vandy Survives

Saturday had several close ones with both Baylor and Oklahoma pulling through in the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge while San Diego and Princeton both won tight ones in the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic.   There was also a good one in Nashville where Vanderbilt won a 3rd set tiebreak in the deciding match to avoid getting upset by unranked Kentucky.

The headliner of the day was between #3 Baylor and #4 USC.  It was almost a forgone conclusion that Baylor would take the doubles point with how dominant they'd been in doubles play but USC had the point well within grasp.  Baylor's #3 duo of Vince Schneider and Felipe Rios were first off the court with 6-3 win but USC's #1 pair of Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz answered with a 6-4 win.  So it all came down to #2 doubles where Baylor's Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano had jumped out to an early break lead on USC's Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson.  USC's 2s would break back to even it at 4 then get a De Vroome hold to go up 5-4 and then would go up 0-30 on the Galeano serve.  The Baylor 2s would win 4 straight points to hold for 5-5 but then Eric Johnson would hold at 40-15 to put USC up 6-5.  For the second service game in a row Baylor would go down 0-30 but they'd dig themselves out again by winning 3 straight points to go up 40-30.  After USC got the next point to make it 40-40, which was a deciding/break point, Lenz dropped the hammer on a 1st serve and sent to a tiebreak.  The tiebreak was all Baylor as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead and ended up cruising to a 7-1 win.

Friday Preview - Va Tech at Wake, USC vs. Tulsa, + Other Storylines

As the excitement of the NCAA Basketball Tournament sweeps the nation I'm sure we'll see some excitement on the tennis courts this weekend as well.  Wake Forest hosts Virginia Tech in a top 16 showdown, 6 top 30 teams will be in Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge, and 7 top 50 teams are in San Diego for the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Classic.  If you can't make it out in person follow along with the live scoring/update links down below.

It appears they have live streaming on 2 of the courts at Indian Wells - click here for those streams.


#16 Virginia Tech (12-1) at #12 Wake Forest (11-4) - 4pm est - Virginia Tech has been the biggest surprise of the season so far winning 12 of 13 but they'll have to leave the comforts of home for just the 4th time this year.  Wake Forest is on a roll as of late having won 3 straight 7-0 matches with the last 2 coming against a pair of top 30 teams (Florida St & Louisville).  Wake is 11-4 in doubles but has only won once when dropping the point (Clemson); conversely they've only lost once when winning the doubles point (Texas).  Virginia Tech is 8-5 in doubles and has come back to win 4 times after dropping the point (Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame, Duke).

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Projected Singles Lineups
1.  #55 Amerigo Contini (VT 14.42) vs. #63 Noah Rubin (WF 14.80)
2.  #40 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT 13.81) vs. #12 Romain Bogaerts (WF 14.40)
3.  #98 Joao Monteiro (VT 13.85) vs. #69 Jonathan Ho (WF 13.56)
4.  Hunter Koontz (VT 13.62) vs. Skander Mansouri (WF 13.30)
5.  Edoardo Tessaro (VT 13.04) vs. Christian Seraphim (WF 13.74)
6.  Florian Nicoud (VT 13.38) vs. Maksim Kan (WF 13.28)

Projected Doubles Lineups
1. #64 Contini/Bjerrehus (VT) vs. #13 Seraphim/Mansouri (WF)
2. Monteiro/Tessaro (VT) vs. Rubin/Ho (WF)
3. Koontz/Nicoud (VT) vs. Keivon Tabrizi/Bogaerts (WF)

Thursday Recap: Vandy Owns The Volunteer State + Full Day of Action in San Diego

Vanderbilt ran its record to 4-0 against teams from the state of Tennessee with an impressive 4-1 win over #40 Tennessee.  The Vols took the doubles point but Vandy took 5 opening sets and ended up getting wins from Gonzales Austin, Danny Valent, Baker Newman, and Suresh Eswaran.

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#17 Vanderbilt 4, #40 Tennessee 1

Singles

1. #10 Gonzales Austin (VU 14.40) def. #14 Mikelis Libietis (UT 14.23) 6-4, 6-2

2. Hunter Reese (UT 13.28) vs. Rhys Johnson (VU 13.45) 5-7, 6-1, 2-3 unf.

3. Danny Valent (VU 13.75) def. Jack Schipanski (UT 13.13) 6-2, 6-0

4. Luis Valero (UT 13.24) vs. Kris Yee (VU 13.58) 7-6 (6), 4-6, 2-0

5. Baker Newman  (VU 12.87) def. Igor Smelyanski (UT 13.43) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4

6. Suresh Eswaran (VU 12.89) def. Brandon Fickey (UT 12.10) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles

1. #2 Reese/Libietis, UT, def. #1 Austin/Johnson, VU, 6-2

2. Dromsky/Smelyanski, UT, def. Newman/Binet, VU, 7-5

3. Schipanski/Valero, UT, vs. Eswaran/Smith, VU, 6-6 unf.

Order of Finish: Doubles (1,2); Singles (6,2,1,5).

Baylor breezes past UCLA, Oklahoma too much for North Carolina, Ivy League's run ends

It was a rainy Sunday across much of the country and while several matches were cancelled due to a lack of indoor courts those that had them put them to use. The matches that were cancelled were Tulsa at Texas A&M, Tennessee vs. Georgia Southern (@ Troy, AL), and a pair of consolation matches at the Blue Gray Classic in Montgomery, Alabama - Boise State vs. Alabama and Auburn vs. Mississippi State.

Baylor's home match with UCLA was moved indoors and in the blink of an eye it was over with the Bears rocking UCLA 4-0 in less than 2 hours.  Baylor improved to 10-0 on the year in doubles with a pair of easy wins at 2 and 3 and were also serving for the match at 1 when the clinch occurred. Baylor took 1st sets at 1, 4, 5, and 6 and Vince Schneider, Felipe Rios, and Julian Lenz each closed out their respective matches in straight sets to seal the win.  Baylor's Mate Zsiga was 2 points away from winning on 5 while UCLA's Dennis Mkrtchian had a set lead on 2 and Martin Redlicki was up 2-1 in the 3rd on 3.

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.