Tuesday Preview - TCU/Baylor & Tulsa/UCLA

Nothing like a little mid-week tennis to get everybody excited and that's what we'll have Tuesday evening with #5 Baylor hosting #15 TCU and #21 UCLA hosting #51 Tulsa.

#15 TCU (8-3) at #5 Baylor (9-2) - 7pm est - Live Scoring & Blog + Video (if played outdoors) - This will be the Big 12 opener for both schools with Baylor fresh off a win over Virginia while TCU swept a pair of matches on Sunday against Wisconsin and Incarnate Word.  TCU started off the year with 5 straight wins including wins over Texas A&M and LSU but then got swept at the National Indoors by Duke, Virginia, and UCLA.  Baylor lost its opener at home to Illinois but since then they've beaten Tulsa, Duke, UCLA, and Virginia twice with just the 1 other loss to Oklahoma at the National Indoors semifinals.  Baylor is a perfect 11-0 in doubles and has only dropped 3 individual courts while TCU is just 4-5 so I can't see anyway that Baylor doesn't win this point.  TCU has used 7 different guys in singles with Trevor Johnson (13.38) also seeing plenty of action at 6 so it's possible he could play at 6 if either Dachs or Lugones can't play.  Diego Galeano has sat out the singles portion for the last 2 matches so it sounds like he isn't 100% so with the way the other guys have been playing I'd be surprised to see him singles in this one.    

3/3 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma will return to the top of the rankings tomorrow and in fact they would have been back at #1 even if USC hadn't lost to Tulsa.  Unlike last weeks rankings which used each teams 4 best wins, the next 3 sets of rankings will use each teams 5 best wins.  OU has 5 Top 20 wins and just the 1 loss to a top 10 Texas A&M.

Duke keeps climbing due to 5 Top 20 wins including road wins at #3 Illinois and #20 Northwestern. As a reminder the rankings reward road wins by giving a 10% points bonus.

Baylor's win over Virginia yesterday bumped them up to #4 just ahead of Georgia.

USC would have been #3 had they beaten Tulsa with the drop due to USC's 5th best win being over #37 Stanford.  The Tulsa loss pushed them down from #3 to #6.

Baylor Does It Again, Longhorns Too Good for Wake, Ole Miss Slams Vandy

It seemed like the story of the day wasn't who was playing; it was who wasn't playing as several big names were missing from their respective team's starting lineups.

The big rematch between Baylor and Virginia didn't come close to matching the level of play that we saw the first time around.  Virginia was without 2 of it's starters with neither Thai-Son Kwiatkowski or Alexander Ritschard playing.   Below is a quote from Virginia's recap that talks about the absence of the 2 players:

Sunday Update

A surprise to start the day as Virginia has shaken up its lineup, I'm guessing due to illness, with neither the ITA #1 Thai Son Kwiatkowski or UVA's #5 Alexander Ritschard are listed in singles.   The seldom used Jonathan Cornish is playing doubles for the first time this year at #3 along with Mac Styslinger.  Both Styslinger and Henrik Wiersholm are listed in the singles lineup at 4 and 6.  

Sunday Preview - UVA at Baylor & Wake Forest at Texas, Vandy at Ole Miss

Sunday will bring us some big time showdowns as #5 Baylor hosts #11 Virginia in Waco, #6 Texas hosts #12 Wake Forest in Austin, and #10 Ole Miss hosts #16 Vanderbilt in Oxford.  All 3 of these matches will be played indoors due to poor weather.

#11 Virginia (7-1) at #5 Baylor (8-2) - 2pm est - Live Scoring & Video (if outside) & Blog -  It was just 2 weeks ago that Baylor upset Virginia 4-3 in the National Indoors Quarterfinals and with temperatures expected to be in the 40s with a chance of rain this one will likely end up indoors too.  I expect both Brian Boland and Matt Knoll to do some tinkering with their respective lineups to try to avoid some unfavorable rematches.  I'd be surprised if Mitchell Frank was back at #1 to face Julian Lenz with Lenz having rolled in their last 2 encounters.  In my opinion I think Ryan Shane will get the call to step up to #1 with Frank dropping to #2.  Even though Tony Lupieri knocked off Thai Son Kwiatkowski in the last meeting I think Lupieri will probably play at #2 like he did against UCLA last weekend.  I'd also be a little surprised if Matt Knoll stuck with the same bottom 3 that he had in the last meeting since Virginia won at #4 and #6 in routine fashion.

HOLY GUACAMOLE!!! #1 USC IS SHOCKED BY #51 TULSA + Other Saturday Results

Shocker of the day, week, month, year, decade, century, maybe longer - #1 USC playing without Eric Johnson and Nick Crystal goes down to #51 Tulsa 4-3.

USC came out strong and really blew out Tulsa in doubles winning 6-1 and 6-0 at 2 and 3 despite having new doubles pairing on each court.  Eric Johnson did play in doubles but I guess it was a coaches decision to give him and Nick Crystal the day off in singles and it ultimately proved to be costly.

Still even with those 2 guys out of the singles lineup you figure there is no way that Hanfmann and Quiroz are both going to lose and sure enough they both did in straight sets.

When I was looking at Saturday's matches and deciding which ones to preview I quickly passed this one over because I didn't think there was any way possible that Tulsa could win this match regardless of whether USC sat a couple of guys.  But I guess there is a reason they play the matches because you never know what can happen on a given day.

Saturday Preview - Illini/Irish, Bruins/Cardinal, Gators/Gamecocks

Compared to what we'll see on Sunday (Virginia at Baylor, Wake Forest at Texas, Vanderbilt at Ole Miss) Saturday should be fairly tame day with just 1 matchup between top 15 schools.  Below are the best ones that I saw on the docket so check them out if you get a chance.

#34 South Carolina (8-6) at #17 Florida (5-3) - 1pm est. - Live Scoring - South Carolina comes into this one on a 3-match losing streak which includes a 4-2 loss on Thursday to Auburn while Florida is coming off a tough 4-1 loss to Georgia. Florida is 4-4 in doubles while South Carolina is 11-3 with both dropping the doubles point the last time out. Here's an interesting stat that you don't see too often for a team at this level - South Carolina is 0-13 at the #1 singles spot this year.  Most likely that streak will stay intact tomorrow because I'd be surprised if Hidalgo didn't beat Koch.  

USC too much for Stanford, LSU hammers Tennessee, Texas A&M beats up Kentucky

Stanford came out strong and took the doubles point over USC but once singles got going so did Stanford's chances of an upset.

USC grabbed 4 1st sets and would finish each of them in straight sets with Eric Johnson putting the first point on the board with his 6-3, 6-1 blowout over David Wilczynski at #3 singles.  Nick Crystal would finish off David Hsu 6-1, 6-3 at #6 singles a few minutes later which then set the stage for USC to close it out on the top 2 courts. After Stanford's Tom Fawcett fought off a match point on the deciding point of his serve, USC's Yannick Hanfmann would hold serve at love to close out the Cardinal freshman at #1 singles by a 6-4, 6-4 score.  With the score now 3-1, Roberto Quiroz would provide the final dagger by finishing off John Morrissey 6-4, 6-4 at #2 singles. The coaches agreed to play out the final 2 courts and USC would take them both with Max De Vroome coming from a set down to win 6-7, 6-1, 6-1 at #5 singles over Nolan Paige and Jonny Wang doing the same at #4 singles and winning 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (6) over Maciek Romanowicz.

Stanford/USC Preview

The owners of 38 NCAA Division 1 Men's Team National Championships will meet on Friday afternoon in Los Angeles as the #1 USC Trojans host the #37 Stanford Cardinal.

USC's media guide shows they lead the all-time series 109-76 with the 1st match played in 1925 while Stanford's shows USC leads it 63-59 with the 1st match coming in 1967.  I'd have to go with USC's as the more accurate source since I know Stanford was playing tennis long before 1967. Stanford has won 17 NCAA Championships with the last coming in 2000 while USC has won 21 NCAA Championships including 5 of the last 6.

USC has won 8 straight in the series with Stanford's last win over SC coming back in 2011 at the National Indoors. This USC team is full of experience with the top 4 spots in the singles lineup occupied by seniors along with a junior and a sophomore at 5 and 6. Stanford on the other hand is starting 3 freshmen, a senior, and 2 juniors.

Let's breakdown the individual match-ups and see if Stanford has any shot at getting close to 4 points against the #1 Trojans.

Bulldogs Bite The Gators, Auburn Over South Carolina, Big Green Beats Big Blue, Stanford/USC Preview

The big match of the day in Gainesville had a close doubles point but once Georgia got the early lead it never looked back and ended up pulling away for a 4-1 win.

The doubles point looked like it was Florida's for the taking after the Gators #2 team of Elliott Orkin and Maxx Lipman cruised to a 6-1 win while its #1 tandem of Diego Hidalgo and Gordon Watson jumped out to a 4-2 lead.   With Georgia's #3 team of Wayne Montgomery and Paul Oosterbaan also winning 6-1 the pressure would go back on Georgia's #1 team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland and the undefeated tandem wouldn't go away as they took 3 straight games to go up 5-4 and were serving for the match.  There would then be 3 consecutive service breaks to send the match to a tiebreak. After falling behind 4-2 and 6-4, Georgia's Austin Smith and Ben Wagland would fight off 2 match points and eventually win the last 3 points to take the tiebreak 9-7 in a match that took 57 minutes.

Dawgs vs. Gators

The oldest tennis rivalry in the Deep South will add another chapter to its history books on Thursday evening when 17th ranked Florida hosts 7th ranked Georgia with 1st serve set to go up at 5:30pm sharp.  Georgia has played Florida more times than any other opponent and the same goes for Florida. One oddity I noticed is that Florida's media guide shows it's played Georgia 100 times while Georgia's only lists 75 matches against Florida.  Below is what each shows is the record against the other: 

Georgia shows an all-time record of 56-19 against Florida,

Florida shows an all-time record of 39-60-1 against Georgia.  

So as you can see there is a rather large variance with the start date of the series being the culprit - Florida shows the series started in 1932 while Georgia shows it started in 1955.  Regardless of who counts what they've played a lot of times and will lock horns again tomorrow so let's dive in and look at the individual matches.  As a side note this will be Georgia's 1st outdoor dual match with all its matches up to this point being played indoors.  

What's Coming Up

There are several intriguing men's matches coming up over the next 4 days and below are the ones that I'll be previewing so look for my Georgia/Florida preview sometime later tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.

I just recently made a change to my cable provider so I now have the Pac 12 Network and I'm really looking forward to watching the telecast of Friday's Stanford/USC match. Justin Gimelstob and Ted Robinson will be on the call and from the few video clips I saw from matches they did last year it appeared the telecast was of very high quality.   If I'm not mistaken you can also watch the match online on the Pac 12 Network's website but your cable has to carry the Pac 12 Network for you to be able to see it.

 

(All Times Eastern)

2/26 (Thursday)

#7 Georgia at #17 Florida - 5:30pm 

2/27 (Friday)

#37 Stanford at #1 USC (Pac 12 Network) - 4pm with Pac 12 Network coverage starting at 5:30pm

2/28 (Saturday)

#34 South Carolina at #17 Florida - 1pm 

#37 Stanford at #21 UCLA - 4pm 

#3 Illinois at #14 Notre Dame - 4pm 

#26 Florida State at #2 Oklahoma - 4:30pm 

3/1 (Sunday)

#12 Wake Forest at #6 Texas - 2pm 

#11 Virginia at #5 Baylor - 2pm 

#16 Vanderbilt at #10 Ole Miss - 2pm 

2/24 ITA Rankings Have Been Released

The new rankings are out and while all my calculations weren't 100% correct they were close.  I had carried over my points sheet from last year but didn't make an adjustment for last week's rankings which had 2 teams tied for 35th which threw off my point totals for everybody from 36 on down by 1 point.

USC is the new #1 in the men's rankings with Oklahoma dropping to #2 after falling at Texas A&M while North Carolina stays at #1 in the women's rankings.   For the full list of both men's and women's team rankings, singles, and doubles scroll down the page.

2/24 ITA Rankings Preview

Tomorrow's set of rankings will be the 1st of the year to use the computers so we'll see some decent size swings from where teams were ranked in the 2/17 rankings which were the last to be voted on by the ITA National Rankings Committee.

Below is what I came up with using the ITA's formula which is listed down below my chart.  There's always a chance I made a calculation error somewhere but by in large they are usually pretty close. These 2/24 rankings utilize each team's 4 best wins (with best being determined by who gives you the most ranking points).  Road wins are given a 10% bonus so beating the 65th ranked team on the road would get your more points than beating the 64th ranked team at home.

It usually takes until the end of March before the rankings get leveled out because by then we're up to using the team's top 7 wins (goes up to top 9 before NCAA selections).  Many teams may have 4 or 5 good wins, which will keep them ranked higher for the 1st few rankings, but once they hit the meat of their schedule they'll likely take on a few more losses with not as many higher ranked wins.  So what I'm saying is if your team is lower than you thought they should be (i.e Virginia #11) don't worry because if they take care of business against tougher competition as expected they'll quickly climb up as they replace wins over teams in the 40-60s with wins over teams in the 5-20s.

If anybody is running rankings themselves and they don't match mine let me know in the comments section so we can see where the variance came from.

Rank	School	Points	Previous
1	USC	85.56	2
2	Oklahoma	83.02	1
3	Illinois	76.77	6
4	Duke	70.93	7
5	Baylor	68.84	5
6	Georgia	62.86	3
7	Texas	62.62	10
8	Ohio State	55.00	9
9	Ole Miss	53.42	15
10	Texas A&M	53.41	13
11	Virginia	53.12	4
12	Wake Forest	52.58	19
13	Columbia	51.98	14
14	Notre Dame	45.56	17
15	TCU	41.54	18
16	Florida*	40.25	16
17	Vanderbilt	39.75	23
18	California	35.77	14
19	North Carolina	34.89	8
20	Northwestern	32.71	26
21	UCLA	32.16	12
22	Harvard	31.67	25
23	South Florida	31.34	24
24	Princeton	30.92	50
25	Oklahoma State	30.00	32

* not 100% certain due to a counted victory over an opponent ranked below 75.

ITA D1 Ranking's Manual 

1. The first six national top 75 team rankings of the spring will be decided by vote of the ITA National Ranking Committee. For the remainder of the spring dual match season, the rankings will be based on the ITA computer ranking system (beginning February 24). For each countable victory and all losses a team receives a prescribed number of points (see point chart) based upon the national ranking of the opponent defeated. Victories and losses in ITAsanctioned college dual matches will count towards the team ranking. 

2. A team is worth its current value/ranking. If a team drops or climbs during the season, it will always be worth its current ranking each given period. Each ranking period, the ranking average will be figured with the total of countable victories and all loses. If the team has fewer ranked victories than the countable victory total for the period, the rest of the counted victories will be its unranked victories. If the team has more ranked victories than the countable victory totals, the team’s highest countable victories will be those counted. All losses will be considered as countable matches, but losses are also weighted according to opponent rank. 

3. The way the points are distributed – points for wins; percentages deducted for losses – they consider a team’s wonloss record, strength of schedule and depth of wins and losses; and significant wins and losses (with bonus points for road wins). The formula works as follows: Sum of points from ‘x’ best wins for that rankings period divided by [the ‘x’ best countable wins for that particular ranking period + Points from all losses]. 

4. The ITA National Ranking Committee can review Nos. 51 through 75 in the first five ITA computer team rankings and has the authority to adjust the rankings in that area to ensure the most-deserving teams enter into the rankings. 

5. Shortened or different formats approved by the ITA can also count towards rankings (if both coaches have agreed on this prior to the match). 

6. Non-division I opponents count as unranked wins and/or losses. 

7. The NCAA team champion automatically goes to No. 1 in final ranking. Bonus points are awarded for advancement in the NCAA Team Championships (see point chart).

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.

Sunday Preview

Rain is in the forecast in many parts of the country so matches are being cancelled or being moved indoors.  Here is my preview of the bigger matches on Sunday (Texas A&M/Tulsa already cancelled due to rain).

#23 Vanderbilt (8-2) at #25 Harvard (8-2)- 12pm est - Harvard Twitter & Video - Both teams have beaten Minnesota over the last 2 days with Vandy squeaking out a 4-3 win on Friday while Harvard throttled the Gophers pretty good on Saturday by a 5-2.  Vandy is 7-2 in doubles while Harvard is 8-2 so it should be a pretty exciting start to the the match.  I could see Harvard winning the match despite dropping the doubles point but I don't see Vanderbilt finding 4 points without the doubles point.  Vandy has now played in 6 matches that have finished 4-3 while Harvard has played in 5 that were either 4-2 or 4-3 so both teams are used to the pressure.  I like Vandy in doubles and Austin and Valent in singles but I like Beltrame, Hu, Tao, and Yeung for the Crimson.  Prediction: Harvard 4-3

Projected Lineup
1. #8 Gonzales Austin (VU 14.40) vs. #91 Denis Nguyen (HV 13.99)
2. Rhys Johnson (VU 13.34) vs. #80 Sebastian Beltrame (HV 13.21)
3. Kris Yee (VU 13.73) vs. Nicky Hu (HV 13.78)
4. Danny Valent (VU 13.74) vs. Alex Steinroeder (HV 13.37)
5. Baker Newman (VU 13.00) vs. Kenny Tao (HV 13.11)
6. Suresh Eswaran (VU 12.87) vs. Brian Yeung (HV 13.19)

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.

Saturday Preview

Friday was an entertaining start to the weekend and I expect that Saturday should more of the same.  Let's take a look at the highlighted matches on Saturday.

The number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of the current date so Notre Dame's Quentin Monaghan has a 14.28 UTR as of today 2/21.  For more details about UTR check out theirwebsite.  

#17 Notre Dame (6-1) at #9 Ohio State (10-3) - 12pm est - Live Scoring & Streaming - Ohio State goes for #200 in a row at home (according to my records) though it won't be easy as Notre Dame usually gives Ohio State a tough match just about every year.  Ohio State has won 10 straight in the series and leads the all-time series 28-27.  A year ago in South Bend, Notre Dame jumped out to a 2-0 lead only to see Ohio State win 4 straight singles matches with the final 2 both being 7-6 in the 3rd.  If the projected lineups below hold up there will be just 1 rematch from last year with that being the match at 1 where Diaz knocked off Monaghan 7-6, 6-4.  Ohio State is 11-2 in doubles while Notre Dame is 6-1.  The Irish must take the doubles point to have a realistic chance at stopping the streak but I think Ohio State gets the point and picks up wins from the bottom 3 of Steinbach, Callahan, and Metka to pull it out.  Prediction:  Ohio State 4-1

Projected Lineup:
1. #29 Quentin Mongahan (ND 14.28) vs. #53 Chris Diaz (OSU 13.80)
2. #92 Josh Hagar (ND 13.74) vs. #30 Mikael Torpegaard (OSU 13.95)
3. Eddy Covalschi (ND 13.13) vs. Herkko Pollanen (OSU 13.58)
4. Eric Schnurrenberger (ND 13.45) vs. #68 Ralf Steinbach (OSU 13.91)
5. Billy Pecor (ND 12.98) vs. #110 Hunter Callahan (OSU 13.90)
6. Nicolas Montoya (ND 12.48) vs. Kevin Metka (OSU 13.80)

Down Goes #1, UNC unable to finish, Vandy wins 4-3 again, & a look ahead to Saturday

What a start to the weekend it was with 2 thrillers taking place 100 miles apart as Texas A&M took out the new #1 Oklahoma 4-3 in College Station while Texas's Lloyd Glasspool refused to lay down as Texas knocked off North Carolina 4-3 in Austin.  

We'll start off in College Station where #1 Oklahoma came to town expecting to waltz all over Texas A&M but the Aggies had other plans as they took the all important doubles point and were then able to pick up 3 1st sets and ultimately pulled off the stunner when freshman Arthur Rinderknech came back from a set down to knock off Oklahoma freshman Spencer Papa 6-7, 6-3, 6-1 at the #4 spot. Oklahoma swept the top 3 spots in the lineup and usually if you do that you've got to feel pretty good about your chances but Texas A&M was able to lock down the bottom 3 plus take the doubles point so there you have it - upset city.  

aTm recap
OU recap

#13 Texas A&M 4, #1 Oklahoma 3

George P Mitchell Tennis Center

Singles competition

1. #11 Axel Alvarez (OU) def. #45 Shane Vinsant (TAMU) 6-4, 6-2

2. #26 Andrew Harris (OU) def. #43 Jeremy Efferding (TAMU) 6-4, 6-1

3. #31 Dane Webb (OU) def. #36 Harrison Adams (TAMU) 6-7 (4-7), 6-1, 7-5

*4. Arthur Rinderknech (TAMU) def. Spencer Papa (OU) 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-1

5. #51 AJ Catanzariti (TAMU) def. #63 Alex Ghilea (OU) 7-6 (7-5), 6-1

6. Max Lunkin (TAMU) def. Jose Salazar (OU) 6-4, 6-2

Doubles competition

1. #8 Shane Vinsant/Harrison Adams (TAMU) def. #5 Dane Webb/Axel Alvarez (OU) 6-4

2. Andrew Harris/Alex Ghilea (OU) def. #13 Jeremy Efferding/Jordan Szabo (TAMU) 6-3

3. AJ Catanzariti/Arthur Rinderknech (TAMU) def. Spencer Papa/Florin Bragusi (OU) 7-5

Order of finish: Doubles (1,2,3); Singles (1,2,6,5,3,4)

*Clinched Match

Friday Preview

It's the weekend after the National Indoors and the start of the outdoor season though play in many parts of the country will still be indoors. Below are some of the bigger matches taking place this weekend with my thoughts on who I like in each one.  

#23 Vanderbilt (7-2) vs. #34 Minnesota (7-1) (@Harvard) - 1pm est - Vandy Twitter & Video - Vanderbilt has been involved in more close matches than just about anyone in the country with 5 of the Dores 9 matches finishing with a 4-3 final with Vandy winning 3 of those 5.  This will be the 4th Big 10 school that Vandy has faced in the last month with them all going to a 4-3 result so they better expect the same today.  Minnesota on the other hand hasn't had a match closer than 4-1 so if it comes down to the final court things could get interesting. The 1 & 4 spots have been Vandy's strength with both Gonzales Austin and Danny Valent each a perfect 8-0 in dual match play while Vandy has struggled to find consistency at 2, 3, and 5 with Johnson (2-4), Yee (3-4), and Newman (1-3) a combined 6-11.  Eswaran is 5-3 and has been the final guy left on the court in just about every match he's played due to Vandy's indoor facility having 5 courts.  Minnesota has seen good play out of just about everyone in the lineup with Toledo (6-1), Hamburg (4-3), Weber (4-1), Spec (7-0), Corwin (5-1) a combined 26-6 while the 6 spot is just 3-4 with Froment 0-2.  Minnesota is a perfect 8-0 in doubles while Vanderbilt is 6-2.  While Minnesota is on the way up I think Vandy is a little more battle tested and will scrap out the close courts.  I like Vandy in doubles and Austin, Yee, and Valent in singles.  Prediction:  Vanderbilt 4-3 

Blue Gray Tennis Classic

For the past 66 years Montgomery, Alabama has hosted college tennis action at its Blue Gray Tennis Classic and this year will be no different with the 2015 edition getting started on Friday and running through Sunday.   The tournament started off as an individual tournament and was changed to the team format in 1984 at the request of Jack Bushman who is known as Montgomery's Mr. Tennis. Until 2010 it was just a men's tournament with the women being added to the fold starting in 2011. For more about the history of this event you can click the link here.

My NTI All Tournament Team & Thoughts From The Weekend

It was pretty easy picking the 2 through 6 spots but picking #1 was a little tougher. None of the matches at #1 singles finished during the semifinals and finals so at most my selection would only have 2 results and that's if his first two matches actually finished.  I went with Hanfmann because he was undefeated even though it appeared he was headed towards a loss against Wayne Montgomery.  

Each player had to play in at least 3 matches to qualify and to make the All Tournament Team each player's team had to at least advance to the quarterfinals (similar to the ITA's rules for its All Tournament Team).  FYI, DNF = Did Not Finish.


College Tennis Today All Tournament Team:

Singles:

MVP:  Alex Ghilea (Oklahoma) - he clinched the semifinal win against Baylor by coming back from a set and 5-2 down and clinched the championship against USC by knocking off the guy, Max De Vroome, that finished their season the year prior in the NCAA Championship.  1 of only 2 guys that went 4-0 on the weekend in singles (Eric Johnson was the other).

Oklahoma The New #1 In Both Polls

It definitely wasn't a surprise to see Oklahoma and USC as 1 and 2 in each of the rankings after this past weekend.  The coaches placement of Baylor at #3, Georgia #4, and Virginia #5 was more in line with my thinking with Baylor coming pretty darn close to beating Oklahoma in the semis.

The ITA has 2 Ivy League schools (Columbia #11/Harvard #25) in the Top 25 for what has to be the first time in quite a while.

UCLA managed to hold firm at #12 despite going 1-2 over the weekend.

The coaches have Mississippi State and Oklahoma State almost 10 spots higher than the ITA.

ITA Write-Up
College Tennis Online Write-Up

Oklahoma Is the New Indoor King (Full Tournament Box Scores)

Last May at the NCAA Championship Final versus USC , Oklahoma won the doubles point but then couldn't follow up in singles.  Today they won the doubles point and then stepped up its game even more during singles play in route to a 4-2 win over #1 USC which gave the Sooner program its 1st ever National Team Indoor Championship.

Things didn't start out looking great for Oklahoma as it looked like USC was going to run them off the court by taking commanding leads on all 3 doubles courts.   While USC's #2 doubles tandem of Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson would cruise to a 6-1 win, the other 2 USC teams wouldn't be able to close out their respective matches.  At #3 doubles USC's Nick Crystal and Connor Farren would lead 5-2 but after an OU hold the Sooner tandem of Florin Bragusi and Alex Ghilea would break on the deciding point for 4-5 and would then reel off an additional 3 games to win the court 7-5.   All said and done Bragusi an Ghilea fought off 4 match points in route to the comeback win.  While USC was cracking under pressure at #3 the Trojan #1 doubles team of Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz was looking to avoid the same thing as they served for the match up 5-4.  After going up 40-30 to give USC 2 match points, Oklahoma's Axel Alvarez and Dane Webb would take the next 2 points to tie it at 5.  2 holds of serve later the deciding match went to a tiebreak.  OU would go up 3-0 in the tiebreak and not look back as they took it 7-4 and with that Oklahoma had capped off an incredible comeback and taken the doubles point for the 1-0 lead.

Men's National Team Indoor Championship Preview

Monday's National Team Indoors Championship will be a rematch from last year's NCAA Championship (box score below) as #1 USC takes on #2 Oklahoma.  USC has only dropped 2 points so far this tournament while Oklahoma has dropped just 4 points (2 doubles & 2 singles) so both teams are accustomed to not only winning but winning fairly comfortably.  USC will be making its 4th straight appearance in the finals and 10th overall after winning in 2012 and finishing as the runner up in 2013 and 2014.  Oklahoma will be making its 1st appearance in the finals.