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

SEC Fall Classic

In addition to the 5 USTA/ITA Regionals taking place this weekend there will also be 9 SEC teams sending guys to Auburn, Alabama for the 2015 SEC Fall Classic.

Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt are the 9 teams participating with Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, and Texas A&M not attending. Texas A&M has a good excuse though - they participating in the USTA/ITA Texas Regional.

Singles Seeds:
1. Danny Valent (Vanderbilt)
2. Giammarco Micolani (Arkansas)
3. Maxx Lipman (Florida)
4. Marko Krickovic (Auburn)
5. Elliott Orkin (Florida)
6. Rhys Johnson (Vanderbilt)
7. Filip Kraljevic (Ole Miss)
8. Thomas Mayronne (South Carolina)

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.

USTA/ITA Regional Championships (Updated Draws)

Over the next 2 weeks regional championships will be held in every ITA region with the champion of each advancing to next month's National Indoor Intercollegiate Championship which will held at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.

Below is the list of regionals that are taking place this week with the others being played the following week.  The ITA's page below also has the same list and they should have draws added in as well.  I'll add them in too as they become available.

NCAA D1 Tennis Committee Meeting Recap

A few months back the NCAA Division 1 Men's and Women's Tennis Committee had its annual meeting to discuss different topics/items for the upcoming season.  The information is available to the general public on ncaa.org but it can be tough to find so I figured I'd share the report here and talk about some of the interesting things that they discussed.

Below are the conferences whose champions are guaranteed a bid into the 64-team NCAA Tournament.  The Southland (Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Lamar, New Orleans, Nicholls St, Abilene Christian, Incarnate Word) was granted a waiver to get a bid despite only having 4 eligible teams last season. Both Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word recently made the move from Division 2 to Division 1 and thus are ineligible for postseason play until the 2017-18 season.

In its review of the 2015 NCAA Championships they talked about needing to spruce up the selection show with more commentary about specific match-ups.  They also mentioned that travel distance and conference opponent restrictions played a role in where teams were placed in the bracket (not new).

Thai-Son Kwiatkowski Rolls To All-American Singles & Doubles Championship

Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski is the 2015 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American Singles Champion after routing Tulane's Dominik Koepfer 6-0, 6-2 in the finals in a match that took around 55 minutes to complete.

Kwiatkowski was in control from start to finish by working Koepfer from side-to-side and more points than not ended with a Koepfer miss with many coming off the forehand wing. Kwiatkowski played great defense but also hit some huge forehands to finish off several games.

3 of Koepfer's 7 service games went to the deciding 40-40 point and he lost all 3. Koepfer struggled at the net and lost 3 different games on a volley that he either mishit or didn't place well enough.

Kwiatkowski/Koepfer Into Finals, Norrie & Tearney Win Futures, UGA Club Team Takes Fall Invitational

After a few close matches on Saturday, Sunday brought a pair of straight sets wins with little suspense as Virginia's Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Tulane's Dominik Koepfer each rolled into the finals.

Thai-Son Kwiatkowski actually fell behind Stanford's Tom Fawcett 2-0 in the opening set but then he reeled off 5 straight games to go up 5-2. After a Fawcett hold, Kwiatkowski would serve out the set and then go up an immediate break in the second set to put Fawcett on his heels. Kwiatkowski wouldn't let up and would close out the 6-3, 6-2 win in just over an hour.

Dominik Koepfer would book his spot to the finals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Cal's Andre Goransson. Koepfer broke the Goransson serve in the 10th and final game of each set to close it out.

Down to the Final 4

Saturday was a busy day for the guys in Tulsa with both the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals held within hours of each other but by the time the dust cleared we had our final 4 and they all happen to be top 16 seeds.

The 8 morning matches saw 6 finish in straight sets with Tom Fawcett, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, Hugo Di Feo, Dominik Koepfer, Uros Petronijevic, and Andre Goransson each winning somewhat comfortably.

Both Ronnie Schneider and Konrad Zieba needed 3 sets in their Round of 16 matches though both cruised in the 3rd set taking the final set by 6-2 scores.  The one thing that was a little strange was the fact that Ronnie Schneider and Shane Vinsant started their Round of 16 match a good two and a half hours after several of the other matches. In fact as the 3rd set started the 3 other quarterfinal matches had already began.

Tennis On Campus - Fall Invitational

The courts at the Palmetto Dunes Tennis Center on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina will be packed this weekend as coed teams from 48 schools across the country compete in the 6th annual USTA Tennis on Campus Fall Invitational.

The University of Florida is going for 3 in a row at the Fall Invitational and they opened up their defense of the title with 3 wins yesterday including a 24-16 win over Ohio State in the Round of 16. The event utilizes the same scoring format as World Team Tennis.

Below is the list of the schools participating and you can follow the event at TOC's event page.  Here is Friday's recap and here are some more FAQ about Tennis On Campus for those not familiar.

All-American 2nd Round: #1 Monaghan, #2 Alvarez, #6 Cid, #8 Montgomery Upset

Rain pushed play indoors on Day 2 of the main draw in Tulsa but that didn't hurt Auburn's Marko Krickovic as the qualifer knocked off the #1 seed Quentin Monaghan (Notre Dame) 1-6, 7-5, 7-5. Monaghan cruised to a 6-1 opening set but Krickovic turned it around in the 2nd set and went up 5-2. Krickovic got broke serving for the set up 5-2 and 5-4 but then he broke Monaghan to go up 6-5 and finally got a service hold to take the set 7-5.  The 3rd set stayed on serve until Krickovic broke for a 4-3 lead and then he consolidated the break with a hold for 5-3. Monaghan would come back from 0-40 down on his serve to hold for 5-4 and then he'd go up 0-40 on the Krickovic serve before breaking from 30-40 to even the match at 5-5. Krickovic would break back on the 40-40 deciding point by clubbing a Monaghan second serve and then finishing at the net with an overhead. Krickovic didn't fool around on his next service game and held quickly at love to finish off the upset win.

Main Draw Round 1 Results

Today was the beginning of the main draw at the All-Americans in Tulsa but things didn't exactly go as planned.  Play was supposed to begin at 9am central but due to an issue with the draw the ITA had to redo it which meant that play was pushed back by 3 hours until 12pm central.  The issue was that all 16 qualifiers were set to face a top 16 seed which isn't the way it's supposed to be done so after the draw was restructured we had 31 new match-ups with only the Nicolas Alvarez/Joao Monteiro pairing staying the same.

Once play begin there was 1 top 8 seed to get upset with #5 Romain Bogaerts of Wake Forest going down to Denver's Diogo Rocha 6-3, 6-3. This was also a Universal Tennis Rating upset with Rocha having a 13.23 UTR and Bogaerts a 14.37 UTR.

There were 2 other Top 16 seeds to get defeated with Georgia's Austin Smith and Texas Tech's Felipe Soares getting knocked out by Texas A&M's Shane Vinsant and USC's Nick Crystal.

The ITA's recap has a few quotes from some of the winners.


All-American 1st Round Results:

[1] Monaghan (ND) def. [WC] Lovett (AL) 5-7, 6-4, 6-3

[Q] Krickovic (AU) def. [WC] Pritchard (TU) 3-6, 6-2, 6-1

[9-16] Fawcett (ST) def. Lomacki (UM) 6-4, 6-4

[Q] Duncan (UGA) def. [Q] Bushamuka (UK) 6-2, 1-6, 7-6(5)

[7] Schneider (UNC) def. Torpegaard (OSU) 6-4, 7-6(5)

Qualifying Is Complete - Main Draw Starts Tomorrow

After 5 days of qualifying the field is now set for the main draw at this year's ITA Men's All-American Championships.

Florida freshman Alfredo Perez pulled off the somewhat rare feat of going 7-0 over the last 5 days by coming from the pre-qualifying draw to the qualifying draw and now to the main draw.  Ohio State's Matt Mendez, who got into the qualifying draw as a lucky loser, almost joined Perez in the main draw but after rallying from 5-2 down in the 3rd to tie it at 5-5 he would drop the final 2 games and lose 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 to North Carolina's Robert Kelly.

Perez is joined by 2 other freshman in the main draw with Georgia's Walker Duncan and Ohio State's Hugo Di Feo also qualifying.

Qualifying Draw Continues - Seeds Continue To Fall

There were 32 seeded players in the 128 man qualifying draw but only 11 are still alive as we head to the final day of qualifying at the All-American's in Tulsa.

There were 3 Top 10 seeds knocked out on Tuesday as San Diego's Jordan Angus defeated the #1 seed, UCLA's Martin Redlicki, 6-3, 6-4, Northwestern's Konrad Zieba defeated the #8 seed, Cal's Filip Bergevi, 7-6(7), 6-2, and Tulane's Constantin Schmitz cruised past the #9 seed, Oklahoma State's Arjun Kadhe, 6-4, 6-1.

The 3 Top 10 seeds that made it to the final round of qualies are Memphis's Andrew Watson (#2) who defeated UCLA's Karue Sell 7-6(3), 6-4, USC's Max De Vroome (#5) who got past Arkansas's Jose Salazar 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-2, and Florida State's Michael Rinaldi (#10) who defeated Charlotte's Jordi Ferrer 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Pre-Q's Wrap Up and Qualies Get Started

The final round of the pre-qualifying draw was completed on Monday and the 16 pre-qualifers had a quick turnaround as they had to play again in the opening round of the qualifying draw. Below are the guys that came through pre-q's:

16 Pre-Qualifers
David Fox (Denver 12.66)

Yannick Zuern (North Florida 13.04)
Alfredo Perez (Florida 13.63)
Jose Salazar (Arkansas 13.77)
Maksim Kan (Wake Forest 13.18)
[9-16] John Mee (Texas 13.48)
[17-32] Sam Matheson (Liberty 12.54)
Leopold Gomez Inslinger (UW-Green Bay 12.77)
[17-32] Jordi Arconada (Texas A&M 13.59)
Cristobal Rivera (Loyola Marymount 12.92)
Howard Scott (UW-Green Bay 12.57)
Jerry Lopez (TCU 13.78)
[9-16] Ricky Medinilla (Purdue 12.67)
[5] Michael Riechmann (Texas 12.77)
Keivon Tabrizi (Wake Forest 12.85)
Jakob Amilon (UNLV 13.13)

Day 2 Pre-Q Results + Qualie Draw Is Out (UTRs Added)

The 266 man pre-qualifying draw is down to the final 32 with 16 matches tomorrow to decide who goes on to the 128 man qualifying draw. It's interesting to note that only 8 of the 32 seeded players have made it to the final round and only 1 of the top 8 seeds is still alive.

If you look the qualifying draw further down you'll notice there are 19 spots reserved for guys coming from the pre-qualifying draw - 16 of those will be earned with the other 3 going to lucky losers. If the ITA does what the ATP/ITF does and awards the lucky loser spots to the highest ranked losers then that guarantees Michael Riechmann a spot since he is the highest remaining seed (#5) and John Mee, Ricky Medinilla, and Dave Bacalla would also have to be feeling good as well since they were seeded in the 9-16 bucket.

Here are you final pre-qualifying match-ups along with each player's Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as of 10/5.

Sebastian Rey (Tulane 13.50) vs. David Fox (Denver 12.66)
Yannick Zuern (North Florida 13.04) vs. Julian Childers (Illinois 12.98)
Robert Herrera (East Tennesse State 13.32) vs. Alfredo Perez (Florida 13.63)
Julius Tverijonas (George Washington 12.96) vs. Jose Salazar (Arkansas 13.77)
Matt Mendez (Ohio State 12.74) vs. Maksim Kan (Wake Forest 13.18)
[9-16] John Mee (Texas 13.48) vs. [17-32] Gustav Hansson (Ole Miss 13.86)
[17-32] Sam Matheson (Liberty 12.54) vs. Jefta Kecic (Western Michigan 12.75)
Leopold Gomez Inslinger (UW-Green Bay 12.77) vs. Felix Rauch (Memphis 12.87)

Day 1 Pre-Q Results

Day 1 of the All Americans is in the books with 6 of the top 8 seeds picking up wins on the the opening day of the pre-qualies.

Top 8 Seeds

1. Rogerio Ribeiro (East Tennessee State) - WON
2. Christian Cargill (William & Mary) - WON
3. Tito Moreiras (UTSA) - WON
4. Gabor Csonka (LSU) - WON
5. Michael Riechmann (Texas) - WON
6. Jonny Rigby (Southern Illinois) - WON
7. Maik Steiner (Western Michigan) - LOST
8. Luis Valero (Tennessee) - LOST

All American Pre-Qualie Draw Is Out

The massive 266 person pre-qualifying draw for the All Americans is out as play officially gets underway on Saturday morning in Tulsa.

There are 20 guys that will meet in the Round of 512 so the road for those guys will be that much harder with each needing to win 5 times to reach the qualifying draw while the other 246 guys will only need to win 4 times to qualify.

Here are the top 8 seeds for the pre-q draw:

1. Rogerio Ribeiro (East Tennessee State)
2. Christian Cargill (William & Mary)
3. Tito Moreiras (UTSA)
4. Gabor Csonka (LSU)
5. Michael Riechmann (Texas)
6. Jonny Rigby (Southern Illinois)
7. Maik Steiner (Western Michigan)
8. Luis Valero (Tennessee)