Final Day of Regional Play - Sakinis Wins Northeast & Rinderknech Wins Texas

Dartmouth's Dovydas Sakinis was the #1 seed for a reason as he proved his worth today when he ran through Columbia freshman Victor Pham to win the Northeast Region singles title.

Sakinis got the first break of the match when he broke Pham to go up 5-3 then followed that up with a hold from 40-15 to take the opening set 6-3.  Sakinis went up an early break in the second set and then went up 3-1 after holding on the deciding point. Sakinis would break again to go up 5-2 and then the big lefty would close out the Championship after hitting a big serve out wide followed by a big forehand crosscourt winner to seal the 6-3, 6-2 win.

Comments from Dartmouth recap
“I am very happy for Dovydas,” head coach Chris Drake said. “Any time you get to this stage of the tournament, you hope to be able to bring your best level of tennis. There was no doubt that Dovydas was able to do that. From the first point, he played an extremely professional match. Once he got ahead, he never let his opponent mount any legitimate comeback.”

Pollanen Wins Midwest, Wilczynski Takes Northwest, & Sakinis/Pham To Meet in Northeast

Going into today semifinals many figured Ohio State would have 1 of its 2 guys make the finals but even the biggest of Buckeye fans wouldn't have banked on 2 but that's just what happened.

Buckeye junior Herkko Pollanen (UTR 13.39) cruised to a 6-1 opening set against the #1 seed Quentin Monaghan (UTR 14.08) but the Notre Dame senior took the second set 6-4 after breaking Pollanen's 4-5 service game. Pollanen went ahead for good in the third set after breaking Monaghan's 2-2 service game and Herkko would break again to close out the match for the 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win.

Buckeye senior Chris Diaz (14.02) advanced to the finals after knocking off Northwestern junior Strong Kirchheimer (13.60) 7-6(6), 7-5 though Kirchheimer definitely had his chances in both sets.  Kirchheimer broke Diaz to go up 5-3 in the opening set but he'd be unable to serve the set out as Diaz broke back and held for 5-5.  In the opening set tiebreak Kirchheimer came back from 5-2 down to lead 6-5 and had set point on his serve but Diaz won both points on Kirchheimer's serve and then won the next on his to take the tiebreak 8-6. In the second set Diaz would break Kirchheimer's 5-6 service game to close out the win.

In the all-Buckeye final, Pollanen would jump out to a 3-1 lead in both sets and while he finished off the opening set without any issues Diaz would make a match of it in the second.  Despite the push by Diaz, Pollanen would break Diaz's 5-6 service game to clinch the championship and automatic berth in next month's National Indoor Intercollegiates.

It's the 4th year in a row that an Ohio State Buckeye has won the Midwest singles title with Mikael Torpegaard taking it last year and Peter Kobelt winning it the 2 years prior.

Despite the loss Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan will still be heading to New York as an at-large due to his #5 preseason ranking.

Denver Sweeps Mountain, Orkin Takes Fall Classic, Steve Johnson Just Misses

It was a great day to be a Denver Pioneer in Albuquerque as Diogo Rocha took the singles championship over Utah's Dan Little and Henry Craig and Alex Gasson took the doubles championship over New Mexico's Hayden Sabatka and Bart Van Leijsen.

Rocha didn't have an easy road to the title as 4 of his 6 matches went 3-sets and he had to come back from 3-1 down in the 3rd set today against Little before pulling it out 6-4 in the 3rd. Utah had a nice recap of today's match explaining the ebbs and flows - give it a read!

Craig and Gasson cruised until today's match but had to come back from a set down to win in a 3rd set supertiebreak over the Sabatka and Van Leijsen.

Saturday Regional Results

In South Bend at the Midwest Regional, 6 of the top 8 seeds moved into the quarterfinals where they'll be joined by Michigan's Carter Lin (12.51) who beat not 1 but 2 top 11 seeds. Lin first upset the #11 seed Toledo's Stjepan Sisko (13.30) 6-4, 6-4 then followed that up by beating the #7 seed Valpo's Jeffrey Schorsch (13.59) 6-4, 5-7, 7-5. Ohio State has 3 in the quarters with Chris Diaz, Ralf Steinbach, and Herkko Pollanen all advancing and they had a 4th in contention before freshman Martin Joyce fell to Illinois's Aron Hiltzik 6-3, 7-6 in the Round of 16.  The host Irish have 2 still remaining in #1 Quentin Monaghan and Eddy Covalschi while Illinois's Aron Hiltzik and Northwestern's Strong Kirchheimer round out the quarters.

Midwest (South Bend, IN) -  Singles & Doubles Draws

Round of 32 
[1] Quentin Monaghan (Notre Dame) def. Toshiki Matsuya (Illinois) 6-3, 6-2
[12] Leopold Gomez Islinger (UW-Green Bay) def. [21] Matt Mendez (Ohio State) 6-1, 6-2
[5] Ralf Steinbach (Ohio State) def. Matej Svjetlicic (Western Michigan) 6-3, 5-7, 6-0
[17] Fedor Baev (Northwestern) def. [16] Alex Knight (Michigan) 2-6, 6-4, 6-2
Julian Childers (Illinois) def. [3] Sam Shropshire (Northwestern) 3-6, 6-2, 6-3
[20] Eddy Covalschi (Notre Dame) def. [14] Josef Dodridge (Wisc) 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(5)

Regional & SEC Fall Classic Updates

In Albuquerque at the Mountain Regional, 4 of the top 10 seeds were knocked out in the first 2 days and then today 4 of the top 6 went down in the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals. Utah and Denver each have 2 guys in the semifinals with Dan Little sets to face Yannik James and Matt Cowley to meet Diogo Rocha.

Seeded Upsets (w UTRs listed after school name - *means reliability <100%)
Daniel Echeverry (Utah St/11.24*) def. [15] Freddie McGeehan (Utah/12.45) 6-2, 3-6, 6-4
Mark Kovacs (Idaho/12.11) def. [5] Thomas Tenrerio (Boise St/12.94) 2-6, 6-0, 6-1
[31] Keaton Cullimore (BYU/13.75*) def. [10] Toby Mitchell (Boise St/12.98) 6-3, 6-2
[26] Matt Cowley (Utah/12.19) def. [16] Cristofer Goncalves (NMSU/12.39) 7-5, 4-6, 6-3
Romai Ugarte (Utah St/12.69*) def. [7] Alex Gasson (Denver/12.84) 6-4, 4-3 ret.
Tim Handel (N Arizona/11.97) def. [9] Bart Van Leijsen (New Mexico/12.73) 7-6, 6-1

USTA/ITA Regional Championships (2nd Week)

7 of the 12 Men's Regionals were completed last weekend with the other 5 taking place this coming weekend.  Below are the 5 taking place this week with information that's available as of this moment.


Mountain (Albuquerque, NM) - Oct 21-25 - Draws
Top 16 Singles Seeds:
1. Henry Craig (Denver)
2. Diogo Rocha (Denver)
3. Hayden Sabatka (New Mexico)
4. Parker McGuiness (Utah)
5. Thomas Tenrerio (Boise State)
6. Shane Monroe (BYU)
7. Alex Gasson (Denver)
8. Dan Little (Utah)
9. Bart Van Leijsen (New Mexico)
10. Toby Mitchell (Boise State)
11. David Fox (Denver)
12. Yannick James (Denver)
13. Andrey Goyachkov (BYU)
14. Jamie Barajas (Utah State)
15. Freddie McGeehan (Utah)
16. Cristofer Goncalves (New Mexico State)

Atlantic & Carolina Regionals Crown Champs

Both the Atlantic and Carolina Regionals came to a close today with players from Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State picking up titles.

Virginia Tech's Joao Monteiro won the singles championship at the Atlantic Regional, which was hosted by Virginia Tech, with a 6-3, 7-6(4) win over Old Dominion's Adam Moundir. Monteiro won each of his 6 matches in straight sets with his wins coming over Temple's Santiago Canete, William & Mary's Aidan Talcott, Penn State's Matt Barry, Old Dominion's Michael Weindl, Penn State's Aws Laaribi, and Moundir in the final.

Southwest, Southeast, Ohio Valley, & Central Crown Champions

Monday was a great day for Indiana's Sam Monette as the Hoosier senior swept the podium by taking both the singles and doubles crown at the Ohio Valley Regional. Monette knocked off Tennessee Tech's Edu Mena 6-1, 6-3 in the singles final and then teamed up fellow senior Daniel Bednarczyk to defeat Ball State's Lucas Anderson and Andrew Stutz 6-1, 6-2 in the doubles final. Monette didn't drop a set all week in route to winning 7 singles matches and 6 doubles matches.

#GoIU #GoHoosiers pic.twitter.com/HoeG5cTLTz

— Indiana Men's Tennis (@IUMTennis) October 19, 2015

Championship Monday

There will be 4 more USTA/ITA Regional singles and doubles champions crowned today with each winner earning a main draw berth into next month's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in New York.

Below is what is in store for today - Tennessee has a blog running for the Ohio Valley, Arkansas is running live scoring for the Central, Florida's twitter will have updates for the Southeast, USC & UCLA will have twitter updates for the Southwest, UNC will have twitter updates for the Carolina, and Virginia Tech has live streaming video for the Atlantic.

Super Bowl Champ Crowned, Hinnisdaels Wins In T-Town, Success on the Tour

There were 2 bids handed out today to next month's Men's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships (NIIC) and those went to Georgia Gwinnett's Kevin Konfederak and Auburn's Max Hinnisdaels.

Konfederak, who won the NAIA singles championship on Saturday, won the all-division Super Bowl today by defeating Asuza Pacific's Jan Meyer 6-2, 6-2.  A short while later Konfederak and Jordan Cox defeated Concordia's Jui Mao and Ofir Ginat 6-2, 6-4 to win the Super Bowl doubles title.

Sunday Regionals

Ohio Valley (Knoxville) Regional - Singles Draw + Blog

Semifinals 

Edu Mena (Tennessee Tech) def. Ricky Medinilla (Purdue) 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(5)
[15] Sam Monette (Indiana) def. [9] Alex Gornet (Louisville) 6-2, 7-6(7)

Championship (Monday)

[15] Sam Monette (Indiana) vs. Edu Mena (Tennessee Tech) 

Central (Fayetteville) Regional  - Singles Draw
Semifinals (Sunday) - Live Scoring
[3] Alex Ghilea (Oklahoma) def. [10] Michael Redlicki (Arkansas) 6-3, 6-4
[12] Julian Cash (Oklahoma St) def. [8] Felix Corwin (Minnesota) 6-1, 6-4

Championship (Monday) - Live Scoring
[3] Alex Ghilea (Oklahoma) vs. [12] Julian Cash (Oklahoma St)

Saturday Regional Updates + Konfederak/Meyer in Super Bowl Final

In addition to the 7 men's D1 regionals taking place this weekend there's also the National Small College Championships taking place in Sumter, South Carolina. The SC Nationals have the top players from D2, D3, JUCO, and NAIA battling for a coveted wild card into next month's National Indoor Intercollegiates in New York. The champs from each division meet in a 4-person/team draw to determine the Super Bowl champ.

The NAIA National Champion Georgia Gwinnett's Kevin Konfederak (13.79) defeated the JUCO National Champ Tyler JC's Ferran Calvo (13.11) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the one semifinal while D2 NC Azusa Pacific's Jan Meyer (13.83) defeated D3 NC Middlebury's Noah Farrell (12.43) 6-3, 6-2.

Konfederak and Meyer will meet Sunday morning at 10am - check out the ITA's event page for match recaps and quotes along with full results from each division.

Friday Regional Recap: Gators Chompin', Green Waves Rollin', Ohio Valley Wide Open

Southeast: The main draw got started on Friday and the host Florida Gators cleaned up going 8-0 which included Josh Wardell (13.18) beating Georgia's Walker Duncan (13.68) 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. 11 of the top 16 seeds won their opening round match but Georgia's Wayne Montgomery and South Florida's Sasha Gozun weren't 2 of them. Florida State's Marco Nunez (13.41) upset the #2 seed Montgomery (14.51) 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 while Miami's Max Andrews (13.56) beat the #8 seed Gozun (13.55) 6-3, 6-3.

Thursday Regional Recap: Elliott Yee upsets Pennington, Dzulynsky over Spec, Surat over Krickovic

Several regionals opened up today and it didn't take long for a few upsets to take place with the #1, #6, and #7 seeds getting beat in the 1st round of the Ohio Valley Regional in Knoxville.

Indiana senior Elliott Yee pulled off the biggest upset when he beat the #1 seed Kentucky's Beck Pennington 6-3, 6-4 in the 1st round. This was also a Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) upset as well with Yee having a 11.91 UTR while Pennington's is 13.71.

Purdue junior Ricky Medinilla (12.66) upended the #6 seed Vanderbilt's Rhys Johnson (13.35) 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the 1st round and Austin Peay junior Aaron Jumonville (12.29) knocked out the #7 seed Indiana's Daniel Bednarczyk (13.05) 7-5, 7-6(6).

The #1 seed in the Central Regional (Fayetteville, AR) also got upset as Nebraska's Andrew Dzulynsky (12.18) took out #1 Minnesota's Matic Spec (14.03) 6-4, 6-4 in the 2nd round. All other seeds players advanced to the 3rd round in Fayetteville.