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: Ohio State & Texas A&M Regionals

Ohio State Regional
Stickney Tennis Center (Varsity Courts) - Columbus, OH

[5] Ohio State Buckeyes (30-2) vs. [49-64] Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (15-6) - Saturday 1pm ET - Ohio State earned the Big Ten's automatic berth after defeating Illinois in the finals of the conference tournament while Tennessee Tech earned the Ohio Valley's automatic berth after knocking off Eastern Kentucky in the finals. TTU will be playing without its No. 2 singles player, Alex Arovin, who was defaulted in the finals of the conference tournament so I'm guessing whatever he did must have carried at least a two-match suspension - rough way to end your collegiate career. 

Doubles Records: Ohio State 28-4, Tennessee Tech 11-10

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Ohio State 85, Tennessee Tech 74

Virginia Wins Thriller Over UNC, Wake Holds Off VT, Georgia & Florida Advance at SEC, OU Wins Bedlam, Bruins Win Pac-12

Semifinal Saturday was good as expected in the ACC with an almost three rain delay adding to the suspense.  North Carolina was looking for its third of the season over No. 1 Virginia and for the better part of four plus hours it looked like they'd get it.

In the high-profile doubles matchup at No. 1 it was the ITA No. 3 team of Brett Clark and Robert Kelly rolling over the ITA No. 2 team of Ryan Shane and Luca Corinteli. Clark and Kelly broke UVA to start the match and then broke again to go up 5-2. Robert Kelly would serve it out to give UNC the 6-2.

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.

Thursday Conference Tournament Results

Several conference tournaments got underway on Wednesday, with an abbreviated schedule, but they really got going on Thursday with the ACC and SEC having four matches each.

All four matches at the SEC Tournament in Columbia, South Carolina, were hotly contested with South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Kentucky the day's winners.

The four matches at the ACC were quite as suspenseful with Virginia Tech rolling over Miami 4-0, Georgia Tech pulling away from Louisville 4-1, Notre Dame holding off Duke 4-1, and NC State edging Clemson 4-2.

Both of the matches in Ojai were 4-0 shutouts with Cal and Stanford overwhelming Washington and Oregon.

Who Let the Heels Out - UNC Takes Out UVA Again & UGA TKOs aTm

When North Carolina defeated Virginia to win the National Team Indoors back in February many thought that win wiped out all the streaks that Virginia had over North Carolina. It turns out there was another streak that was still intact going into today's match and that was the fact that Virginia had won the doubles point over North Carolina in 18 straight matches dating all the way back to April 3, 2004. Well that streak was broken today when North Carolina found a way to pull out the point in dramatic fashion.

Virginia's Collin Altamirano and JC Aragone didn't waste any time at No. 3 as they ran all over Ronnie Schneider and Andrew Gores 6-0.

North Carolina's No. 2 team of Brayden Schnur and Jack Murray took their first lead of the match when they broke to go up 4-3 and then Murray held for 5-3. Virginia's Mac Styslinger and Thai-Son Kwaitkowski would hold for 4-5, break Schnur for 5-5, and then hold for 6-5. Murray held to send it to a tiebreak and in the tiebreak the UNC pair jumped out to a 5-2* lead. UNC served up 6-4 but UVA got the mini-break back only to see UNC take the next point to win it 7-6(5).

Sunday Recap: Owls Shred #9 Texas Tech, Hogs Tops Rebs, USC Survives Oregon, Dawgs Tame the Cats

Rice was looking to win the Rice Invitational for the ninth year in a row but to achieve that feat it'd have to find a way to beat a top 10 team for the first time in 10 years. Both Rice and Texas Tech beat William & Mary and Drake on Saturday so both were playing well coming into today's finale.

Texas Tech's Felipe Soares and Hugo Dojas won 6-4 at No. 1 doubles but Rice's Jake Hansen and Emanuel Llamas came back from *1-4 down to win 7-5 at No. 3.  Rice's Jamie Malik and Adam Gustafsson trailed 6-3 in the tiebreak at No. 3 but would fight off a total of five match points to win a marathon tiebreak 14-12 to give Rice the doubles point and early 1-0 lead.

Friday Recap: Mayhem in Music City, Nuts in the Emerald City, Gators Win In Starkville, Cal Survives, UAB, LMU, & UNLV Beat Ranked Teams

Another Friday brought us another round of stunning upsets as a pair of top 10 teams went down on the road.

Vanderbilt won its third consecutive match by a 4-3 score as it stunned No. 7 Texas A&M 4-3. The Commodores took the doubles point when Tate Allwardt and Baker Newman knocked off Max Lunkin and AJ Catanzariti 7-6(5) at No. 2.

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.

Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Holds Off Florida, NC State Upsets Wake, Ohio State Wins At OU & More

In what had to be the match of the day it was No. 8 Texas A&M outlasting No. 30 Florida 4-3 in 3 hours and 51 minutes. Florida jumped out to the early lead by taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 but Texas A&M came out ready to go in singles and took five opening sets.

Jordi Arconada was off the court first with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Chase Perez-Blanco at No. 3 but Florida's Gordon Watson answered with a 6-4, 6-4 win over AJ Catanzariti at No. 5.

Texas A&M senior Jackson Withrow evened the match at 2-2 with a 7-6, 6-2 win over Florida freshman McClain Kessler at No. 6 but Florida retook the lead when freshman Alfredo Perez rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Texas A&M senior Harrison Adams.

Cal Stuns TCU, UNC Takes Out OU, Texas Hooks Stanford, Bucks Blank Hokies

Some days things go your way and some days they don't - for TCU, Oklahoma, and Stanford it was the latter while Cal, North Carolina, and Texas walked away with big smiles on its faces.

Cal got punched in the gut when it couldn't participate in the Kick-Off Weekend due to weather but they made up for it this weekend in spades with wins over #26 Texas and #2 TCU.

Both Cal and TCU played physical matches on Saturday with each getting pushed by its opponents but while Cal bounced back TCU wasn't able to keep up the Bears.

TCU pulled out the doubles point for the second day in a row with wins at #2 and #3 but Cal got humming in singles and took opening sets at #2, #3, #4, and #6.

Sunday Preview - Cal/TCU, Ohio State/Va Tech, UNC/OU, Texas A&M/South Florida

#5 Oklahoma (3-1) at #7 North Carolina (5-0) - 1pm est - Live Scoring & Video - Oklahoma is coming off a 5-2 win at #63 Alabama on Friday while North Carolina last played a week ago when it shutout #12 Illinois 4-0. The Sooners really have missed the presence of its #2 Andrew Harris (14.76) who has been sidelined for a while with knee tendinitis and without him they've had to make adjustments to both the singles and doubles lineups. Axel Alvarez comes into this match having lost two straight and the team has dropped the doubles point in two straight matches. North Carolina has been battling some injuries as well though both Brayden Schnur (tendinitis) and Ronnie Schneider (ankle) have continued to play but their results have been just so-so (2-3). 

Men's Kick-Off Weekend Regional Previews

There will be 15 men's regionals taking place this weekend with 2 of the 15 getting started on Friday. I'll start off by previewing the USC and Illinois Regionals since they both start on Friday and I'll work my through all 15 of them by Friday evening. Keep checking back for updates since I'll just be adding on to this post. FYI, the numbers beside the school name are each player's current Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as of 1/20/16. 

USC Regional (Fri/Sat) - Marks Stadium (no live scoring due to construction)

#57 UC Davis [4] at #8 USC [1] – 4pm est/1pm pst – USC Twitter - This will be the dual-match opener for USC with the Trojans expected to start at least 3 freshmen while UC Davis kicked off its season on Wednesday with a 4-0 loss at #18 Stanford. The Aggies return all 6 starters from last year's team including its top player #38 Alec Adamson who had a tremendous fall winning four matches over ranked opponents. I don't foresee UC Davis getting on the board in this one with USC just too strong top to bottom. Prediction: USC 4-0 (Result: USC 7-0)

Top 20 - Who Is Coming Back & Who Is Departing (Part 3)

I looked over 1-10 and 11-15 a few days ago so today I'll look at the teams that finished the year ranked 16-20.

The new recruits section is from tennisrecruiting.net and from school releases so its possible some of those guys may not end up where they are currently showing. Several teams will probably have some guys coming in from outside the U.S. so we probably won't know any names until the schools put out a release or we see the name on the roster in August or January. BC=Blue Chip, 5*=5 star, etc.

NCAA 1st Round Previews: Virginia Tech & Baylor Regionals

Virginia Tech Regional
Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center - Blacksburg, VA

[15] Virginia Tech (19-4) vs. [49-64] East Tennessee State (17-7) - Friday 2pm - #15 Virginia Tech got an at-large bid after getting upset 4-3 in the ACC quarterfinals by #42 Georgia Tech while ETSU punched its ticket for the 9th year in a row after shutting out Furman in the Southern Conference Championship. ETSU went 2-6 against ranked opponents with the wins over #56 Texas A&M Corpus Christi and #73 UNC Wilmington. ETSU finished the season by winning 13 in a row and 16 of its last 17 with the Bucs only yielding 11 points in the 16 wins. 

Doubles Records: Virginia Tech 13-10, ETSU 17-7

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Virginia Tech 83, ETSU 79

Friday Recap: Georgia Tech Does It Again, UNC Rallies Past Duke, Big 12, Pac 12, & More

Another action packed day of college tennis is in the books and it was the ACC giving us the 2 best matches of the day as Georgia Tech and North Carolina both pulled out 4-3 thrillers.

I'm big fan of the schools that take the time to put an audio or video interview out on twitter shortly after the match finished.  TCU has done a great job all year getting a 30-second interview with David Roditi out on twitter and the last few days Georgia Tech has done the same with Kenny Thorne.  It's always better to hear the comments from someone as opposed to reading them.  I'm also a fan of school's posting video clips of match points - just gives you a feeling that you're there and lets you see the emotion from the players after a big win.

ACC:

In one of the early matches Georgia Tech came out of the gates like a bull seeing red. GT took the doubles point by winning at 1 and 3 and then took the opening set on 4 of 6 singles courts.  GT's Eduardo Segura finished first with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Jai Corbett at #6 but VT's Joao Monteiro would trim the GT lead to 2-1 with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Nathan Rakitt at #3.  Christopher Eubanks would make it 3-1 GT with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Andreas Bjerrehus at #1.

Sun Shining On Florida Gulf Coast + A Look Back At A Few More From Sunday

Florida Gulf Coast was the big winner today as the Eagles earned its first ever NCAA berth by defeating North Florida 4-3 in the finals of the Atlantic Sun.  The teams met in the regular season 2 weeks ago with FGCU winning 7-0 but FGCU figured it wouldn't be as easy this time around despite UNF playing without its injured #1 Jack Findel-Hawkins (13.32).  The match, held in Jacksonville at UNF, started on Sunday but before the rain came UNF captured the doubles point by winning a pair of tiebreaks at 2 and 3.  Usually when you have the top 2 seeds playing for a conference championship you expect several 3-setters but all 6 singles matches finished in straight sets with no set closer than 6-4.

Sunday Recap: Hoos Too Much For Hokies, Texas A&M Gets Past Florida

Both Virginia and Texas A&M faced tough opposition on Sunday but both answered the bell and came out on top.  Virginia won the doubles point and then took all 6 opening sets and managed to finish the top 3 out in straights as Mitchell Frank, Ryan Shane, and Thai-Son Kwiatkowski all won.   Virginia played singles without one of its top 3 players as Collin Altamirano sat out due to a stomach bug.

Virginia Tech did show some fight down low but Virginia still managed to win 2 of those 3 with all going 3 sets.

Virginia recap

"I was pleased with the overall performance today," said head coach Brian Boland. "Virginia Tech showed why they are a top-15 team, if not better. They are solid from top to bottom. We had all the momentum, winning doubles and six first sets, but they never gave up. We had to overcome a little adversity today and I was happy with how we responded to that."

"Missing Collin and Alex (Ritschard) in singles, I was pleased with how the guys stepped up," said Boland. "Alex is continuing to get better and is getting close to being back. Collin had a stomach bug and was able to play doubles, but not singles today. I thought the team responded well to having to reshuffle the lineup a little bit."

Sunday Preview: VT/UVA, FLA/aTm, + Other Storylines

Sunday brings us 2 Top 20 showdowns with Virginia hosting Virginia Tech while Florida hosts Texas A&M.  Below are the breakdowns of those 2 matches along with a schedule of play for the day.


#13 Virginia Tech (15-2) at #4 Virginia (15-3) - 1pm est - This will be the first time these two have ever met when both have been ranked inside the top 15. Virginia puts its 131 match ACC winning streak on the line as well as its 11 match winning streak against Virginia Tech.  The doubles point will be huge for VT because I don't see anyway they come close without taking that point.  Virginia Tech is 10-7 in doubles while Virginia is 16-2.

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of April 4th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Projected Singles Lineup:
1. #63 Amerigo Contini (VT 14.26) vs. #29 Mitchell Frank (UVA 14.96)
2. #45 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT 13.79 vs. #6 Ryan Shane (UVA 14.60)
3. #109 Joao Monteiro (VT 13.76) vs. #55 Collin Altamirano (UVA 14.80)
4. Hunter Koontz (VT 13.65) vs. #10 Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (UVA 14.66)
5. Edoardo Tessaro (VT 13.29) vs. J.C. Aragone (UVA 13.95)
6. Jai Corbett (VT 12.87)  vs. #112 Mac Styslinger (UVA 13.94)

Others who could play: Henrik Wiersholm (UVA 13.46), Florian Nicoud (VT 13.27), Aaron Gomez (VT 12.94)