Men's Individual Preseason Rankings With UTRs

It's officially time to open the book on another season of college tennis and the first page contains the preseason individual rankings which were released earlier on Tuesday. For those that weren't aware these preseason rankings are simply last year's final rankings with all the graduating seniors removed along with those that turned pro or are taking the fall off to play pro events. There are no freshmen included in these initial singles rankings although there is a list of the top 10 newcomers.

Ohio State junior Mikael Torpegaard lands at No. 1 in the men's rankings after finishing last year at No. 2. TCU junior Cameron Norrie is at No. 2, Illinois junior Aleks Vukic is at No. 3, Virginia senior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski is at No. 4, and Georgia Tech junior Christopher Eubanks comes in at No. 5.

Final Men's Singles Rankings

The final singles rankings were released on Wednesday with NCAA singles champion Mackenzie McDonald finishing the year at No. 1.

The NCAA Champion Virginia Cavaliers had all six singles starters ranked in the top 125 while no other team had more than four. There were nine teams that had four ranked starters with another five that had three ranked.

Final Men's Team Rankings

The ITA actually put these final team rankings out last week on May 25th but I didn't make a release because I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle with the NCAA Tournament still in progress.

The national champion Virginia Cavaliers finished at the top spot while UCLA finished at No. 2 and TCU finished at No. 3. Oklahoma made the biggest jump in the top 10 by rising four spots from No. 10 to No. 6 after making a run to the finals. Cal moved up four spots as well by coming up from No. 13 to No. 9 after making it all the way to the semifinals.

Stanford and SMU had the biggest increases with each coming up eight spots to No. 21 and No. 22 respectively after each made it to the NCAA Round of 16.

Pre-NCAA Tournament Rankings Released

The final set of rankings that was used to determine the NCAA field for both teams and individuals was released on Thursday. There weren't many differences from what I projected on Monday with the men's at-large cut-off falling at No. 42 while the women's at-large cut-off was No. 43. The Alabama men missed the field by .08 while the Fresno State women missed the field .23.

The men's singles at-large cut-off was No. 56 since there were eight automatic qualifiers that were ranked below that number.  No. 57 Strong Kirchheimer is listed as the first alternate though past experience tells us that at least three or four alternates (if not more) will make it in due to people dropping out due to injury or fatigue.

Final Men's Ranking Projections & Potential NCAA Selections

Well it has been one heck of a regular season but we are now officially headed to the postseason. The final regular season rankings were run twice to account for all the weekend's results and this set of rankings will be used to determine the NCAA Tournament field.

64 teams qualify for the NCAA Tournament with that number comprised of 31 automatic qualifiers and 33 at-large bids (the AQs are at the bottom of the link). The at-large cut-off for the men's field ended up at 42 since there were 9 conference champions that were ranked in the top 42. 

4/26 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings with Top 10 Profiles & Bubble Watch

Virginia stays at the top spot for the third week in a row despite the loss to Wake Forest in the finals of the ACC Championship. UCLA and North Carolina stay at No. 2 and No. 3 while Ohio State and TCU swap spots at No. 4 and No. 5.  Wake Forest and Georgia swap spots at No. 6 and No. 7 while Texas Tech moves up to No. 8. Florida moves up two spots to No. 9 and Oklahoma remains at No. 10. For further details on why the teams moved check out my profiles on each team further down below.

This set of rankings used each team's nine best wins as will next week's unpublished rankings which will be used to make the at-large selections for the NCAA Tournament.

4/19 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 10 Profiles

Virginia stays at the top spot for the second week in a row while there was some shuffling at the two through five spots. UCLA moved up two spots to No. 2, North Carolina moved up two spots to No. 3, TCU fell two spots to No. 4, and Ohio State fell two spots to No. 5.

Georgia and Wake Forest remain at No. 6 and No. 7 though the gap between the two has widened considerably. USC moved up one spot to No. 8, Texas Tech moved up one spot to No. 9, and Oklahoma dropped two spots to No. 10. For further details on why the teams moved check out my profiles on each team further down below.

This set of rankings used each team's nine best wins and all losses as will each subsequent set of rankings until the selection of the NCAA field on May 3rd.

4/12 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 9 Profiles

As I forecasted on Monday, Virginia is your new No. 1 with its road win over Florida putting it over the top. TCU stays at No. 2, Ohio State comes up two spots to No. 3, UCLA stays at No. 4, and North Carolina, which was last week's No. 1, falls to No. 5 after a stunning loss to Notre Dame.

Georgia moves up one spot to No. 6 after a win over Florida, Wake Forest drops one spot to No. 7, Oklahoma rises one spot to No. 8, USC falls one spot to No. 9, and Texas Tech rises one spot to No. 10.

This set of rankings used each team's nine best wins and all losses as will each subsequent set of rankings until the selection of the NCAA field on May 3rd.

4/5 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 8 Profiles

North Carolina retained its top spot after splitting matches with Virginia and Wake Forest while TCU and Virginia remain at No. 2 and No. 3. UCLA moves up one spot to No. 4 after picking up wins over Cal and Stanford while Ohio State drops one spot from No. 4 to No. 5 despite winning both of its matches last weekend.

Wake Forest stays at No. 6 despite winning at No. 1 North Carolina. The reason they didn't move up was because the team's ahead of them had better overall wins plus Wake's loss to NC State is weighing them down a tad. When I did my projections I had Wake at No. 7 because I made an error on my spreadsheet; instead of giving Wake its 10% road bonus for the UNC win I only gave them 10% as in .1 instead of 10% of 106.  Georgia had a nice week picking up wins over Texas A&M and LSU but they remain at No. 7 because everyone else ahead of them either won or had better overall wins. USC moves up one spot to No. 8 after beating Stanford and Cal while Oklahoma was the big mover in the top 25 coming up from No. 18 to No. 9 after winning at South Florida and Florida State. Texas A&M stays at No. 10 just .16 ahead of No. 11 Texas Tech.

This set of rankings used each team's eight best wins and all losses while next week's rankings and all the subsequent rankings until the selection of the NCAA field will use each's nine best wins.

3/29 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 7 Profiles

North Carolina retained its top spot but TCU and Virginia swapped spots at No. 2 and No. 3. If TCU's win over Texas A&M would have counted in these rankings the Horned Frogs would have been the new No. 1. Ohio State is still at No. 4 while UCLA moves up to No. 5 after the previous No. 5 Oklahoma State was upset by SMU.

Wake Forest moved up seven spots to No. 6 after picking up a road win at Florida State while Georgia moved up four spots to No. 7 after beating Kentucky. Oklahoma State dropped three spots to No. 8 after losing to SMU while USC dropped one spot to No. 9 after losing at Washington. Texas A&M falls three spots to No. 10 after losing at Vanderbilt.

This set of rankings used each team's seven best wins and all losses while next week's rankings will use each's eight best wins.

3/22 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 6 Profiles

The new rankings are out and for the second week in a row we have a new No. 1 with North Carolina overtaking Virginia by almost 9 points. TCU stays at No. 3, Ohio State stays at No. 4 and Oklahoma State moves back ahead of UCLA at No. 5 with the Bruins at No. 6. Further down below I have a more in-depth breakdown of the top 6 and how the points were calculated.

This set of rankings used each team's six best wins and all losses while next week's rankings will use each's seven best wins.

3/15 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release - Top 5 Profiles

The new rankings are out and as expected we have a new No. 1 with Virginia sliding ahead of North Carolina. TCU holds firm at No. 3, Ohio State slides down to No. 4 and UCLA comes up to No. 5 just a .03 ahead of Oklahoma State. Further down below I have a more in depth breakdown of the top 5 and how the points were calculated.

Northwestern moved back into the top 10 at No. 7 after its first win over Illinois since 1997 while Texas Tech, who was idle, slid up No. 10 to No. 8. Texas A&M dropped from No. 7 to No. 9 after losing at Arkansas while Wake Forest dropped one spot from No. 9 to No. 10 despite a 7-0 win over Notre Dame.

News and Notes - UTR vs. ITA, Davis Cup, Attendance Race, Miami Streaming, Me in Des Moines

The first thing I wanted to mention is that I wrote an article for the Tennis Recruiting Network that ran today with the topic being the Road to Tulsa. It talks about the teams that I think are contenders for the national championship along with the others that have some work to do so make sure you give it a read.

After the release of the latest Oracle/ITA rankings,  I wanted to do a comparison between those and the most recent Universal Tennis Ratings. Below is a chart of the top 25 men and women sorted by UTR and ITA rankings.

3/8 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release

The third computer rankings of the year are out and while there was still a good bit of movement it wasn't as drastic as in the past two weeks.

North Carolina remains at #1 while Ohio State rises up from #4 to #2 after getting the big road win at Oklahoma. TCU stays at #3 while Virginia drops from #2 to #4 with Oklahoma State staying at #5.

3/1 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release

The second computer rankings of the year are out and as expected there was a lot of movement throughout the top 75. As I mentioned in the past it usually takes at least 3 weeks of computer rankings before things start to level out some but they really will come into better focus later in March when the number of countable wins climbs past five.

The top two stayed the same with North Carolina at #1 and Virginia at #2 while TCU jumped up to #3 off the strength of its ranked road wins over Illinois and Wisconsin. Oklahoma State came up from #9 to #5 due to its strong win over South Florida and Northwestern enters the top 10 at #9 due to it having five wins over ranked opponents.

The next two rankings will also use each team's five best wins so I expect my predictions to become more accurate with each passing week.

2/23 Oracle/ITA Men's Rankings Release

The first computer rankings of the year are out with the ACC occupying three of the top five spots. North Carolina is sitting pretty comfortably at #1 with a nine point lead over #2 Virginia though Virginia has an almost eleven point lead over Ohio State.

As a reminder these rankings are based off last week's rankings, which were done by the rankings committee, so I'd expect to see a lot more shifting next week too. This week the computer used each team's 4 best wins but for the next 3 weeks it'll use each team's 5 best wins.

My Top 25 - Week of 2/15 + My NTI Recap

We are three days removed from North Carolina's stunning win over Virginia but I went back and recapped the whole weekend in an article that I did for the Tennis Recruiting Network. If you haven't already seen it give this link a click.

Here are is my top 25 based off what I've seen so far - I have notable wins and all losses listed for reference. The number inside [ ] is where I had them last week.

1. North Carolina (10-0) [5] - won at Virginia, UCLA, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and Illinois. Tar Heels won the National Team Indoors in unbelievable fashion beating Virginia in Charlottesville. Next decent sized matchup comes on March 11th when UNC goes to Tallahassee to play Florida State.

2/17 ITA Rankings Release

The post NTI Oracle ITA men's rankings are out and North Carolina is sitting pretty at #1 after winning the title. Since there weren't any published rankings last week we saw a good bit of movement throughout the Top 75 and also a lot of movement within the Top 10.

Both UCLA and Wake Forest came up five spots to #4 and #5 while Texas A&M dropped four spots to #7. Oklahoma and USC each dropped three spots to #8 and #9 while Texas Tech entered the top 10 at #10.

#56 Wisconsin made the biggest jump by coming up 18 spots from #74 after winning at then #23 Minnesota.

2/10 Women's Rankings Released Along With Men's Singles/Doubles

The post NTI women's rankings are out and as expected Cal is the new #1 after winning its first-ever team national championship. The previous #1, Vanderbilt, fell 4 spots to #5 after suffering a quarterfinals loss to Ohio State with the Buckeyes themselves rising 10 spots from #16 to #6.

The individual rankings for both the women and men were released as well with several guys and gals entering for the first time with many previously unranked due to not playing in the fall.

Tulane's Dominik Koepfer and Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski stayed at #1 and #2 in the men's singles rankings while Stanford's Tom Fawcett rose from #9 to #3 after picking up wins over #6 Cameron Norrie (TCU), #13 Joao Monteiro (VT), #69 Freddy Gelbrich (SDSU), and #81 Alec Adamson (UCD).

2/10 ITA Top 20 Projections + My Top 20 + Computer Top 20 + UTR Top 20

Since it's the week of the National Team Indoors the ITA doesn't publish its rankings so I'll give you a couple of different versions to mull over while we wait for the NTI draw to come out on Tuesday night.

First I'll start off with what I think the ITA Top 20 will look like based off last week's rankings and taking into account any results from last week. Secondly, I'll have my own personal top 20 based off what I've seen so far. Then, I'll have what the computer top 20 would look like if each team's best 2 wins were used (first computer rankings in 2 weeks will use the best 4 wins). Lastly I'll show you what the UTR Top 20 looks like.