Friedrich Wins in Orlando + Several Guys Have Pro Success

South Carolina's Gabriel Friedrich knocked off teammate Harrison O'Keefe 6-3, 6-7(0), 6-4 in a live streamed match on ESPN3 to win the top singles flight at the USTA Clay Court Invitational in Orlando.

Comments from SC recap:
“What a way to end the tournament,” South Carolina head coach Josh Goffi said. “I couldn’t be more proud of Gabriel and Harrison. Both kept raising their level to trump the other’s momentum gains and, consequently, we ended up with a very high-level match at the end. They were respectful, yet extremely competitive, and that’s one of the hardest things to do when you’re playing your teammate. It’s disappointing that there had to be a loser today because both of them played great and got better throughout the match. In the end, the Gamecocks won, and it’s a great day for our program.”

Recap: Friedrich Tops O’Keefe in Three Sets for USTA Clay Court Title https://t.co/PB5TA3dum3 #Gamecocks pic.twitter.com/wpUEugNMxq

— Gamecock M. Tennis (@GamecockMTennis) November 8, 2015

All-Gamecock Men's & All-ACC Women's Final in Orlando

The champion of the USTA Clay Court Invitational Gold draw is guaranteed to be a South Carolina Gamecock after sophomores Gabriel Friedrick and Harrison O'Keefe each won twice on Saturday.

Friedrich (13.68) opened up with a 6-3, 6-2 quarterfinal win over Troy's Giovani Samaha (12.94) and then beat Pepperdine's Guilherme Hadlich (13.68) 6-3, 6-4 in the semis while O'Keefe (13.49) beat Baylor's Jimmy Bendeck (13.22) 6-2, 7-6(4) in the quarters and Pepperdine's Pedro Iamachkine (13.09) 6-4, 6-4 in the semis.  

In the Garnet draw final it'll be Pepperdine's Lautaro Pane (12.83) taking on Penn State's Tomas Hanzlik (13.21) after Pane knocked off Central Florida's Jose Sangroniz (12.50) 6-1, 6-3 and Hanzlik beat Georgia Tech's Andrew Li (12.97) 6-3, 6-2.

In the women's Gold draw it'll be NC State's Martina Frantova (10.42) versus Virginia Tech's Ilinca Stoica (10.50). Frantova hasn't dropped a set all weekend and dispatched the #1 seed Florida's Josie Kuhlman (11.33) 6-3, 6-4 in the semis. Stoica has only dropped 1 set in her 4 matches after getting past Florida's Brianna Morgan (11.10) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.

Both finals will be broadcast on ESPN3 with coverage starting at 9am est on Sunday - don't forget to tune in!!

Friday Tournament Results

Pepperdine, Baylor, and South Carolina each have 2 guys still remaining in the Gold Draw of the USTA Clay Court Invitational while Georgia Tech and Troy have the others.

The Nebraska brother duo of Dusty and Toby Boyer won the Big 10 Indoors doubles championship with a 6-3 win in the final over Penn State's David Kohan and Christian Lutschaunig.  Singles play begins on Saturday and finished on Monday.

It hasn't been the best fall so far for Wake Forest's Romain Bogaerts (14.29) as he fell to 0-5 after getting upset by Navy's Austin Jones (12.36) 7-6(4), 6-3 at the Wake Forest Fall Invitational.

College on Tour - Friday Update

After a week with no titles the former/current guys are storming back this week with several in contention at Futures, Challengers, and ATP Masters events across the world.

The big story yesterday was #13 John Isner (Georgia '07) knocking off the great #2 Roger Federer 7-6(3), 3-6, 7-6(5) in the 3rd round of the Paris Masters. Isner hammered 27 aces with 0 double faults and won 73% of points on his serve. Big John also won a higher % of points on Federer's serve (29%) than Roger won on John's (27%). Next up for John in the quarterfinals is the speedy Spaniard David Ferrer. Ferrer owns a 5-1 H2H advantage though that was the same margin that Federer had against John prior to yesterday.

Men's Seeds Get Roughed Up in Orlando, LSU Fall Invite Underway

Thursday wasn't a great day to be a top 8 seed at the USTA Clay Court Invitational in Orlando with seeds in the Gold singles flight scratching out a sub-par 2-6 record. Of course the seeds were based on the preseason ITA rankings and didn't take into account whether guys had much clay court experience and as you'll see below the guys with clay court experience excelled. Women's seeds on the other hand faired very well going 6-2..

The #1 seed Florida's State Michael Rinaldi (13.62) was upset by Troy's Giovani Samaha (12.94) 7-5, 6-3 though Samaha had to be much more comfortable with the surface and having played in multiple clay court Futures events over the summer plus he played 4 rounds of qualies in Birmingham over the weekend. Rinaldi on the other hand last played a competitive match on clay at this same event in 2013 and he failed to win in either of those 2 matches.

Upcoming Tournaments - B1G Indoors, USTA Clay Courts, LSU Invite, Commodore Scramble, WF Fall Invite, UTR Texas

Florida State is the host for the 2015 USTA Clay Court Invitational which will take place in Orlando at the ESPN Wide World of Sports and the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. ESPN3 will have streaming video on Thursday and Sunday and all results will be posted on the tournament's twitter feed. Tournament draws are posted below with the top 8 seeds from the top singles brackets shown as well.

Participating men's teams: Florida State, Baylor, Central Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, Michigan, Penn State, Pepperdine, South Alabama, South Carolina, Stetson, and Troy.

Men's Seeds (Gold)
1. Michael Rinaldi (Florida St)
2. Nathan Rakitt (Georgia Tech)
3. Mariano Porter (Central Florida)
4. Runhao Hua (Michigan)
5. Alex Gornet (Louisville)
6. Mraco Nunez (Florida St)
7. Gabriel Friedrich (South Carolina)
8. Matt Barry (Penn St)

NIIC Selections, UMBC Cut, Top 20 College Tennis Facilities

The National Indoor Intercollegiate selections were released today and while they were pretty straight forward there were a few last minute changes.

In the men's singles draw, Florida's Diego Hidalgo got in as a 7th at-large due to North Carolina's Ronnie Schneider pulling out. I know Ronnie has had shoulder issues in the past so that could be why he's out.

Georgia's Austin Smith (14.41) got the at-large selection that was reserved for the player with the highest UTR.

Duke's Nicolas Alvarez, who was the Oracle Masters Runner-Up, got the ITA's wild card and Illinois's Jared Hiltzik was awarded the USTA's wild card despite not participating in any collegiate events this fall.

Sunday Wrap Up - De Vroome Wins SoCal, Jared Hiltzik Wins UTR Decatur Open, Kentucky & Oregon Win 2 Flights, Sisko Wins MAC

USC senior Max De Vroome won the 59th annual Southern California Intercollegiate Championships by defeating UCLA senior Karue Sell 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-2 in the championship match which was held on the campus of UCLA at the LA Tennis Center. De Vroome was the #1 seed and Sell was the #3 seed.

Congrats on a great tournament, Karue! #UCLA #gobruins @USTASoCal @USCollegeTennis pic.twitter.com/ddEcaCknfs

— UCLA Men's Tennis (@uclatennis) November 1, 2015

Weekend Tournaments (Updated Through Saturday)

We're still 2 weeks out from the National Intercollegiate Indoors so between now and then there are a few fall tournaments taking place throughout the country.

Louisville is hosting the Louisville Invitational this weekend with teams several teams from the Ohio Valley Region participating along with Marquette and Northwestern Ohio.  The tournament format features three flights of singles and doubles and will be played both indoors and outdoors. Draws are below and here (updated with Saturday's results). Louisville's twitter will have score updates. 

A Singles Final: Gian Issa (MTSU 13.05) vs. Nils Ellefsen (KY 12.55)
B Singles Final: Kevin Lai (KY 12.71) vs. Adrian Mag (Butler 11.72)
C Singles Final: John Tougher (Lipsc 11.21) def.  Dan Lineberry (SIUE 11.31) 7-6(2), 6-4

UNLV is hosting the Larry Easley Memorial Classic this week with players coming in from Arizona, Boise State, Grand Canyon, Mesa CC, Northern Arizona, Oregon, and Oklahoma State.  The tournament will have two flights of singles and one flight of doubles. Arizona's twitter will have some updates of matches involving Wildcats. Draws are here and Friday/Saturday results are further down.

Detailed NCAA Study on Sports Sponsorship & Participation Research

The NCAA recently released its sports sponsorship and participation rates report and the numbers confirmed what we all knew - tennis, especially men's tennis, is on the decline. The report tracks student-athlete participation by sport and gender dating back to the 1981-82 season and tracks teams dropped and added since 1988-89.

Here is some of the highlights or should I say lowlights of the report:

In 2014-15, the sport with the highest number of women’s teams dropped was tennis with nine, followed by golf and lacrosse. The women’s sports that have been dropped the most since 1988-89 are cross country and golf with 241 programs dropped and indoor track and field with 239 programs eliminated in the NCAA.

How To Grow College Tennis & Regional Roundup

I wrote an article for ZooTennis talking about how to grow college tennis and what I think are the keys to making the sport sustainable for years to come.  Make sure you give it a read and don't hesitate to provide feedback over on Colette's site or right here.

Yesterday concluded the 2 weeks of USTA/ITA Regional play which determined the automatic qualifiers for the National Indoor Intercollegiates which will be held from November 12th through 15th at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. Click here for a full list of qualifiers along with my picks for the at-large and wild cards on the men's side.

Below were the results from each regional final on the Men's side:

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

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.