3/31 ITA Rankings Have Been Released - Top 10 Breakdown

Oklahoma stays at #1 in the ITA Men's rankings for the 5th week in a row and for the 6th time in the last 7 weeks. The top 4 in the Women's rankings stays the same with Georgia and Florida swapping spots at 5 and 6.

Below I'll breakdown the Top 10 on the men's side looking at the 7 best wins that were used in the rankings this week along with other quality ranked wins that could potentially fit in down the road.  You'll notice some of the quality wins are ranked higher than a top 7 win and that is because I used the new ranking so that you can see what changes will be made next week.  

Oklahoma would have retained its #1 ranking whether they played or not last week but they increased their margin after knocking off a pair of top 10 teams in TCU and Texas last week.  

• 7 Best Wins: #2 Baylor (2x), #4 Virginia, #7 USC, #9 Texas, #10 TCU, at #11 Ohio State
• Other Quality Wins: at #12 Wake Forest, #14 Ole Miss, #19 North Carolina (2X), #22 South Florida, #24 Northwestern
• Losses: #8 Texas A&M
• What's Coming Up: #20 Tulsa (4/1), at #2 Baylor (4/10), at #21 Texas Tech (4/12), #30 Oklahoma State (4/19)
• Comments:  Would be hard to see them NOT staying #1 all the way through the regular season. 

3/31 ITA Rankings Preview

Oklahoma is still on top as expected and has widened its margin to a 8.5 points over #2 Baylor thanks to a pair of top 10 wins last weekend over Texas and TCU.  This week's rankings use each team's top 7 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 8 and then the week after that it'll be at 9 and stay there until the end of the regular season. 

Viriginia makes the biggest jump inside the top 20 from 8 to 4 thanks to wins over North Carolina and Duke. Mississippi State should have the largest jump inside the top 40 as I see them coming up 8 spots from 34 to 26. Tulsa should also make a nice push jumping 7 spots from 27 to 20 after winning on the road at South Florida on Sunday.

Oklahoma State will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 8 spots from 22 to 30 after dropping a pair last week to Texas and TCU.  

Sunday Recap: Illinois, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M All Win Big

It was expected to be a dynamite day with 4 matches taking place between top 15 teams but in the end we got 4 lopsided matches with 3 of the 4 wrapped up in under 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Illinois put an end to Ohio State's 97 match regular season Big 10 winning streak with a 4-0 win.  The Illini surprised many by taking the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 doubles.  Illinois' #2 team of Aron Hiltzik and Ross Guignon got a break to start the match and never looked and rolled to an 8-5 win.  Below is match point which includes a swing and miss by Diaz.

The Illinois' #3 team of Farris Gosea and Aleks Vukic fell behind 3-1 before taking the next 5 games to go up 6-3.  A couple of service hold later and Illinois had the doubles point.

Sunday Preview: Ohio St/ILL, UVA/Duke, TX/OU, Ole Miss/aTm + Sunday Storylines

Sunday should be a fabulous day of tennis with 4 matches taking place between top 15 teams with Champaign, Charlottesville, College Station, and Norman the hot places to be.  3 of the 4 will take place outdoors with only the Ohio State/Illinois match likely headed indoors due to crummy weather.

I see at least 1 lower ranked team winning but I definitely wouldn't call it an upset. Check out the stats and projected lineups and see if you can figure out who wins each match.

#11 Ohio State (16-6) at #3 Illinois (16-3) - 1pm est - This will be the 2nd meeting of the year between these two with Illinois taking the first one 4-2 in the consolation draw at the National Indoors back in February.  This match is all but guaranteed to be played indoors due to Sunday's forecast of rain, high winds, and cooler temps.  Both teams are coming off nice wins with Illinois beating Penn State 6-1 and Ohio State winning at Northwestern 5-2.  Ohio State is 18-4 in doubles while Illinois is 10-9 so you've got to like the Buckeyes to take the early lead.  The top 3 singles matches should be repeats from February while the bottom 3 will be different.   Below is the box score from the 1st meeting and further down below we'll look at the singles match-ups.

Saturday Recap: Step On Back - The Pack Attacked

Going into today's match against #12 Wake Forest, NC State had played in 11 matches that finished with a 4-3 score with the Pack on the losing end in 7 of those 11 matches.  It was just last weekend that NC State had #16 Virginia Tech on the ropes but the Pack couldn't slam the door shut and watched as the Hokies #5 rallied from 5-2 down in the 3rd to win.

Today NC State finally broke through as they upset Wake Forest 4-3.  The Wolfpack took the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 and then picked up singles wins from Simon Norenius, Austin Powell, and Beck Bond at 2, 3, and 4 to seal the deal.  The match was played indoors at NC State's 4-court indoor facility so the matches at 5 and 6 didn't go on until a court opened up.  Both were played out after the clinch with Wake winning both.

Saturday Storylines

There aren't any top 20 match-ups on the schedule today but there are a few that should be good.

#60 Dartmouth plays its 5th match in the last 7 days against #32 Florida State.  Will the Big Green have enough left to challenge the Noles or does FSU lean on them and push them back on the their way to Hanover?

#12 Wake Forest goes to Raleigh to face #38 NC State - the Wolfpack has lost 3 straight and 4 of the last 5 matches by a 4-3 score.  Is today the day the Pack has the 4 in front of its name or does Wake take it to them?

#20 Florida goes to the plains to face #45 Auburn - does Auburn have enough depth to challenge the Gators or will Florida roll them 4-0?

Friday Recap: Oklahoma Holds Off TCU, Virginia Too Good For UNC, UGA Over Vandy, Ohio State Too Much for NW

Oklahoma got pushed by TCU in singles but ultimately the Sooners had too much depth and outlasted TCU 4-1.  After OU took the doubles point they picked up 4 1st sets and ended up getting wins from Andrew Harris, Alex Ghilea, and Spencer Papa at 1, 4, and 5.  TCU's lone point came from freshman Guillermo Nunez as he hammered Dane Webb 6-3, 6-2 at #3.  The 2 remaining matches were abandoned with each early in the 3rd set.  

Oklahoma recap

“It was a good match,” head coach John Roddick said. “TCU played very well and they played hard.  We got a pretty good lead on them and they forced us into third sets. Our guys competed well. Doubles was a lot better. We are really coming around there. All in all it’s a good day.”

Head Coach John Roddick

“Spencer did a great job getting off the court in straight sets like that,” Roddick said. “I won’t say that it was easy but he did a great job of taking care of business and getting us a 2-1 lead. That really put us in a good spot because we had other first sets. That gives them very little wiggle room and that was probably the biggest key to winning today.”

“I think we were in good position on two courts and I’ll never doubt Axel until he loses the last point,” Roddick said. “We have been good at putting teams in position where they have very little margin for error. When you do that you will come out on top more often than not. We don’t have a clock so you have to close them out and our guys did that.”

Friday Preview: UNC/UVA, VU/UGA, Ohio St/NW, TCU/OU + Other Storylines

While some conferences are already half way through their schedules others are just beginning. Both the Big 12 and Pac 12 kickoff conference play on Friday while the ACC, SEC, and Big 10 are nearing or have already passed its half way point.  Below are the 4 biggest matches of the day so make sure you keep an eye on these.


#14 North Carolina (14-6) at #8 Virginia (12-3) - 3pm est - North Carolina's biggest problem this year has been fielding a healthy starting 6 and there's a chance that its best 6 players may be on the court on Friday.  UNC's #1 Brayden Schnur has now missed the last 5 matches but the Tar Heels hope that he'll be able to go on Friday. Virginia has battled some injuries as well but they still haven't missed a beat in conference play with its current ACC winning streak at 129.  UNC is 15-5 in doubles while Virginia is 13-2.  These teams met earlier this year in Chicago, in the consolation draw, at the National Indoors with Virginia cruising to a 4-0 win.  This one might be a little closer but Virginia will still win comfortably. I like UVA in doubles and see singles wins from Frank, Shane, Altamirano, Kwiatkowski, and Aragone.  Prediction: Virginia 6-1

When A Win Isn't A Win

We are coming up one the 1 year anniversary of one of the odder things that has happened in college tennis in the last several years.

Last year on March 28th, Illinois and Penn State played an exhausting dual match in State College that lasted just under 6 hours (4 indoor courts) and ended with the Illini coming out on top thanks to Julian Childers coming back from a set down to win in 3. After the match each coach praised the other team and talked about how great a match it was - I mean why wouldn't they after spending almost 6 hours together.

So why is all this so strange?  It's strange because 5 days later the Big 10 overturned the decision due to a Penn State protest based off Illinois playing it's highest ranked player, Jared Hiltzik, at #1 singles. Hiltzik had been out of action for 6 weeks recovering from an injury and was soundly beaten by Leonard Stakhovsky in his return to the court.  The Big 10 coaches felt that playing a less than 100% Hiltzik at #1 was a line-up stack giving the Illini a better chance at each of the remaining courts.  The coaches felt that Hiltzik should have played at 2 with Farris Gosea at 1.

UPDATE: After writing this I found out some more details that I wanted to share. The Big 10, like several other conferences, requires the coaches to submit their lineups early in the week for the upcoming matches and after the submission there is a challenge process.  It was during the challenge process, several days before the match, that the other Big 10 coaches voted down the Illinois lineup and made them change it to show Gosea at 1 and Hiltzik at 2.  Despite having its originally submitted lineup struck down, Illinois decided to use it anyway on principal (as stated at the bottom) and that's why the protest was made and followed through on.  Even if Penn State hadn't protested the result it could have been challenged by any other coach in the conference.  I still don't necessarily agree with it but now I fully understand it and can respect the decision made by the Big 10.   The statement at the very bottom from April 2 alluded to the protest but I originally read it to mean the lineup was protested after the fact when in reality it was protested during the challenge process days before the match was played. 

Wednesday Recap: Rice Hoots & Hollers Past Northwestern, Mississippi State Is The King Of The Magnolia State

Wednesday was a rough day to be a top 20 team on the road as both #13 Ole Miss and #19 Northwestern got upset.

In Houston, Rice picked up its 1st win over a top 20 opponent since 2009 when the Owls stunned Northwestern 4-1.  Rice took the doubles and then picked up singles wins from Srikar Alla, Max Andrews and David Warren at 1, 2, and 5.  Northwestern's Logan Staggs won at #4 singles in a losing effort and Konrad Zieba made his season debut at #3 singles for the Cats and led when the match was halted.

What's Coming Up

All the spring break tournaments are wrapped up and now its time for everybody to get into the meat of their conference schedules.   Below are some of the matches that I'll be keeping an eye on - the ones in bold are the ones I plan on previewing.

3/25 (Wednesday)

#13 Ole Miss at #34 Mississippi State - 4pm est/3pm cst

3/27 (Friday)

#14 North Carolina at #8 Virginia

#11 Ohio State at #19 Northwestern

#10 TCU at #1 Oklahoma

#7 Texas at #22 Oklahoma State

#17 Vanderbilt at #5 Georgia

Tuesday Recap: Dartmouth knocks off SMU & Pepperdine beats Washington

#36 SMU opened up its new outdoor facility tonight but #60 Dartmouth spoiled the party with a 4-1 upset win.  The Big Green was playing the middle match of a 5 game road trip and after losing to both TCU and Oklahoma State it definitely was a welcome win.

Dartmouth came out and won a tight doubles point by winning 7-5 at both 1 and 3 while SMU took #2 doubles 6-4.  In singles, Dartmouth took the opening set on 5 of 6 courts and was able to pick up wins from Brendan Tannenbaum, Dovydas Sakinis, and Ciro Riccardi.  At the time of the clinch Dartmouth's Max Schmidt was a game away up 5-2 in the 3rd.

3/24 ITA Rankings Have Been Released - Top 10 Breakdown

Oklahoma stays at #1 in the ITA Men's rankings for the 4th week in a row and for the 5th time in the last 6 weeks.   The USC women are the new #1 in the Women's rankings for the 1st time since 2003 after defeating both Cal and Stanford last weekend.   

Below I'll breakdown the Top 10 on the men's side looking at the 6 best wins that were used in the rankings this week along with other quality ranked wins that could potentially fit in down the road.  You'll notice some of the quality wins are ranked higher than a top 6 win and that is because I used the new ranking so that you can see what changes will be made next week.  

Oklahoma retained its #1 ranking after beating Columbia and Baylor last weekend at the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge in Indian Wells.  

• 6 Best Wins: #2 Baylor (2x), #6 USC, #8 Virginia, at #11 Ohio State, at #12 Wake Forest
• Other Quality Wins: #13 Ole Miss, #14 North Carolina (2X), #18 South Florida, #19 Northwestern
• Losses: #9 Texas A&M
• What's Coming Up: #10 TCU (3/27), #7 Texas (3/29), #27 Tulsa (4/1)
• Comments:  Well positioned to stay at #1 for some time with a great resume plus they get a chance to add not 1 but 2 more top 10 wins this weekend.   

Monday Recap: Bruins over Runnin' Rebs, Mustangs Over Broncos, Tigers Beat the Jags, Stanford Plays a Match

Typically Mondays only have 1 or 2 matches but there were a handful of decent ones on the slate today with Cal Poly going into Boise and winning, Memphis winning at South Alabama, and UCLA getting a slightly tougher than expected win over UNLV.

UCLA won the battle of the abbreviations with a 6-1 win over UNLV.  UCLA was a little shorthanded with 2 of its top 3 players out of the doubles lineup with Mackenzie McDonald (14.91) and Martin Redlicki both participating in a Futures event in Calabasas this week.  After UCLA dropped the doubles point things were actually looking a little concerning but fortunately Redlicki was able to make it back in time to play in singles because otherwise the Bruins would have had to slide everyone except Mkrtchian up 2 spots in the lineup which could have spelled trouble for UCLA. In all seriousness UCLA probably still would have won no worse than 5-2 even without Redlicki.

3/24 ITA Rankings Preview

The gap at the top has widened as Oklahoma continues to add more and more top 10 wins.  Oklahoma now has 10 wins over teams in the Top 14 - that's a crazy figure and will likely keep OU at the top for a while. This week's rankings use each team's top 6 best wins and then next week it'll go up to 7 and then every subsequent week after that they add 1 more best win to get up to 9 by April 14th.

TCU will make the biggest jump within the top 20 as the Horned Frogs move up 8 spots from 18 to 10 after beating #2 Illinois on Monday and then defeating #48 Dartmouth on Saturday.  San Diego makes the biggest jump in the top 40 as it'll rise 9 spots from 30 to 21 on the strength of wins last weekend over #32 Princeton, #33 Drake, and #43 Denver.

Harvard will take the biggest fall in the top 40 by dropping 11 spots from 22 to 33 after losing to both Drake and Princeton out in San Diego.

Sunday Recap: Sooners Come Up Big Again, Ole Miss Rolls, Duke Scraps Past Wake, Hokies Charge Back

After struggling in doubles most of the year, Oklahoma came up big in the finals of the BNP Paribas Collegiate Cup and handed Baylor its first doubles loss of the year and ultimately its 3rd overall loss as the Sooners beat Baylor 4-2.  The Oklahoma win was the second over Baylor in the last 5 weeks and they'll meet up against in Waco on April 10th.

Baylor's #2 team of Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano won easily 6-2 but Oklahoma would win the other 2 courts 6-4 with Dane Webb and Axel Alvarez getting it done on 1 and Spencer Papa and Florin Bragusi winning on 3.  It was the first win of the year for the Papa/Bragusi pairing and it couldn't have come at a better time.

Each team would take 3 1st sets but with Baylor needing 4 singles wins they would need to close out their 3 and turn 1 more - OU wouldn't let it happen.  Axel Alvarez put OU up 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-2 shellacking over Tony Lupieri at #2 and Alex Ghilea would make it 3-0 with an equally dominant 6-2 6-3 win over Vince Schneider at #4.  Julian Lenz would get Baylor on the board with a 6-3, 6-2 win at #1 over Andrew Harris and Mate Zsiga was just 2 games away from winning at #5. However, Oklahoma's Florin Bragusi would put an end to any doubt and clinch the win and title by defeating Felipe Rios 7-5, 6-4 at #6 and thus snap Rios's 10-match winning streak.

Getting the doubles point was huge for Oklahoma because even though they've come back before after dropping it this was a red-hot Baylor team they were facing.  If Baylor takes that opening point then it would have come down to a 3rd set at #3.  Of course you can play the IF game all day; bottom line is Oklahoma keeps on winning and keeps performing when it matters that most.

Sunday Preview: Oklahoma/Baylor, Wake/Duke, Ole Miss/Florida + other storylines

Sunday brings us 3 matches between Top 15 teams with the headliner taking place in Indian Wells between #1 Oklahoma and #3 Baylor.  The other 2 big ones are in Oxford where #13 Ole Miss hosts #15 Florida and in Durham where #6 Duke hosts #12 Wake Forest.  It should also be mentioned that all 3 are rematches from earlier in the year with 2 playing each other during the Kickoff Weekend and the other meeting at the National Indoors.  There's a full schedule at the bottom of this post with scoring links as well.

#1 Oklahoma (16-1) vs. #3 Baylor (14-2) - 1pm est/10am pst - This will be a rematch from the National Indoor Semifinals which was a match Oklahoma won 4-2 (box score below).  Baylor had its chances in the match and had Mate Zsiga not let a 6-4, 5-2 lead slip away at #5 singles the outcome could have been different.  The only singles court which projects to be a rematch is at #1 singles and that was the only court that didn't finish last time.  Baylor has been far and away the better team in doubles so the Bears will look to get that early 1-0 lead like they have in every match that the doubles point has been played.  Oklahoma will look to lean on its top 3 in singles as they have all year while Baylor hopes its bottom 3 continues its recent dominance.  Let's take a look at the lineups and records. 

Bears Sic 'Em, Oklahoma Rallies Past Columbia, Toreros Hold Off Drake, Vandy Survives

Saturday had several close ones with both Baylor and Oklahoma pulling through in the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge while San Diego and Princeton both won tight ones in the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic.   There was also a good one in Nashville where Vanderbilt won a 3rd set tiebreak in the deciding match to avoid getting upset by unranked Kentucky.

The headliner of the day was between #3 Baylor and #4 USC.  It was almost a forgone conclusion that Baylor would take the doubles point with how dominant they'd been in doubles play but USC had the point well within grasp.  Baylor's #3 duo of Vince Schneider and Felipe Rios were first off the court with 6-3 win but USC's #1 pair of Yannick Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz answered with a 6-4 win.  So it all came down to #2 doubles where Baylor's Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano had jumped out to an early break lead on USC's Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson.  USC's 2s would break back to even it at 4 then get a De Vroome hold to go up 5-4 and then would go up 0-30 on the Galeano serve.  The Baylor 2s would win 4 straight points to hold for 5-5 but then Eric Johnson would hold at 40-15 to put USC up 6-5.  For the second service game in a row Baylor would go down 0-30 but they'd dig themselves out again by winning 3 straight points to go up 40-30.  After USC got the next point to make it 40-40, which was a deciding/break point, Lenz dropped the hammer on a 1st serve and sent to a tiebreak.  The tiebreak was all Baylor as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead and ended up cruising to a 7-1 win.

Saturday Preview: USC/Baylor + Other Storylines

What a great day it'd be to be out in Indian Wells with 4 college matches going on highlighted by USC/Baylor plus you've got Djokovic/Murray and Federer/Raonic - high quality viewing.

The Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Spring Classic wraps up today with San Diego and Drake meeting in the finals plus they'll be a good 3rd place match between Ivy League powers Harvard and Princeton.  Can Drake make it 3 wins in 3 days playing San Diego in the Toreros own backyard?

TCU hosts a pair of lower ranked teams with both Dartmouth and UT Arlington coming in though of course it's not that far for UT Arlington.  Any chance TCU gets caught napping and drops 1?

Kentucky is still looking for its first conference win of the season after some near misses against Georgia (2-4), Tennessee (3-4), and South Carolina (1-4).  Will Vanderbilt be able to follow up its win over Tennessee with another win over Big Blue?

Oklahoma takes on Columbia though you figure OU has to have its eyes set on either USC or Baylor. Will the Lions catch Oklahoma off-guard and pull off a surprise?

Now for the big one - Baylor/USC.  Both teams are playing well though Baylor is definitely playing a little better right now.  Can Baylor keep it up or does USC show that it's not one to be forgotten about?  Let's dive in and take a look at all the #s.  As a reminder in the singles matches the UTRs are after the school abbreviation.

Friday Recap: Wake Too Good for VT, USC Gets Its Revenge, The Ville Rocks UNC, Several 4-3 Nailbiters

Friday brought us several close ones as 6 matches finished with a 4-3 final score though of course there were several that weren't as close most notably 3 of the 4 in Indian Wells.  

The big upset of the day came in Louisville as the #29 Cardinals stunned #10 North Carolina 5-2.  It looked like #7 Texas A&M might get picked off too however the Aggies rallied late and held off #35 Mississippi State 4-1.  #33 Drake came back from 3-0 down to stun #22 Harvard 4-3 and #23 LSU pulled out a tight 4-3 win on the road at #60 Alabama.

In the biggest match of the day #12 Wake Forest ran its winning streak to 4 with a 5-2 win over #16 Virginia Tech.  The Demon Deacons cruised past Va Tech in doubles and then Noah Rubin made it 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 beat down of Amerigo Contini at #1 singles.  Jon Ho would extend the lead to 3-0 with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #4 singles over Hunter Koontz before Virginia Tech's Edoardo Tessaro would put the Hokies on the board with a come from behind 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Christian Seraphim at #5 singles. Romain Bogaerts would clinch the win for Wake Forest with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win at #2 singles over Andreas Bjerrehus and then the teams would split the 2 remaining matches after the clinch.  

Wake Forest now sets its sights on #6 Duke with Wake making the short trip to Durham on Sunday.

Friday Preview - Va Tech at Wake, USC vs. Tulsa, + Other Storylines

As the excitement of the NCAA Basketball Tournament sweeps the nation I'm sure we'll see some excitement on the tennis courts this weekend as well.  Wake Forest hosts Virginia Tech in a top 16 showdown, 6 top 30 teams will be in Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge, and 7 top 50 teams are in San Diego for the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Classic.  If you can't make it out in person follow along with the live scoring/update links down below.

It appears they have live streaming on 2 of the courts at Indian Wells - click here for those streams.


#16 Virginia Tech (12-1) at #12 Wake Forest (11-4) - 4pm est - Virginia Tech has been the biggest surprise of the season so far winning 12 of 13 but they'll have to leave the comforts of home for just the 4th time this year.  Wake Forest is on a roll as of late having won 3 straight 7-0 matches with the last 2 coming against a pair of top 30 teams (Florida St & Louisville).  Wake is 11-4 in doubles but has only won once when dropping the point (Clemson); conversely they've only lost once when winning the doubles point (Texas).  Virginia Tech is 8-5 in doubles and has come back to win 4 times after dropping the point (Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame, Duke).

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Projected Singles Lineups
1.  #55 Amerigo Contini (VT 14.42) vs. #63 Noah Rubin (WF 14.80)
2.  #40 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT 13.81) vs. #12 Romain Bogaerts (WF 14.40)
3.  #98 Joao Monteiro (VT 13.85) vs. #69 Jonathan Ho (WF 13.56)
4.  Hunter Koontz (VT 13.62) vs. Skander Mansouri (WF 13.30)
5.  Edoardo Tessaro (VT 13.04) vs. Christian Seraphim (WF 13.74)
6.  Florian Nicoud (VT 13.38) vs. Maksim Kan (WF 13.28)

Projected Doubles Lineups
1. #64 Contini/Bjerrehus (VT) vs. #13 Seraphim/Mansouri (WF)
2. Monteiro/Tessaro (VT) vs. Rubin/Ho (WF)
3. Koontz/Nicoud (VT) vs. Keivon Tabrizi/Bogaerts (WF)

Thursday Recap: Vandy Owns The Volunteer State + Full Day of Action in San Diego

Vanderbilt ran its record to 4-0 against teams from the state of Tennessee with an impressive 4-1 win over #40 Tennessee.  The Vols took the doubles point but Vandy took 5 opening sets and ended up getting wins from Gonzales Austin, Danny Valent, Baker Newman, and Suresh Eswaran.

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#17 Vanderbilt 4, #40 Tennessee 1

Singles

1. #10 Gonzales Austin (VU 14.40) def. #14 Mikelis Libietis (UT 14.23) 6-4, 6-2

2. Hunter Reese (UT 13.28) vs. Rhys Johnson (VU 13.45) 5-7, 6-1, 2-3 unf.

3. Danny Valent (VU 13.75) def. Jack Schipanski (UT 13.13) 6-2, 6-0

4. Luis Valero (UT 13.24) vs. Kris Yee (VU 13.58) 7-6 (6), 4-6, 2-0

5. Baker Newman  (VU 12.87) def. Igor Smelyanski (UT 13.43) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4

6. Suresh Eswaran (VU 12.89) def. Brandon Fickey (UT 12.10) 6-1, 6-3

Doubles

1. #2 Reese/Libietis, UT, def. #1 Austin/Johnson, VU, 6-2

2. Dromsky/Smelyanski, UT, def. Newman/Binet, VU, 7-5

3. Schipanski/Valero, UT, vs. Eswaran/Smith, VU, 6-6 unf.

Order of Finish: Doubles (1,2); Singles (6,2,1,5).

Wednesday Recap: Bulls Ground The Gophers & Cowboys Rally Past The Mustangs

The top 25 showdown between South Florida and Minnesota may have finished 4-3 but it wasn't that close as South Florida cruised to the doubles point and then picked up 4 opening sets and ended up sweeping the top 3 courts.  Roberto Cid provided the clincher at #1 singles winning the 3rd set 6-1 then after the clinch the 2 remaining matches played 10 point supertiebreaks in lieu of a 3rd set.

USF recap

“[Minnesota] has a very good team in doubles and we have a very strong team in doubles, so we knew that would be a huge point,” said head coach Matt Hill. “The guys played really well today, especially at No. 1 and No. 3, so that gave us a lot of confidence moving into the singles.”

Minnesota recap

FYI, the number beside the player's school is the player's Universal Tennis Rating as of March 14th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#21 South Florida 4, #25 Minnesota 3

Mar 18, 2015 at Tampa, Fla. (USF Varsity Tennis Courts)

Singles competition

1. #21 Roberto Cid (USF 14.19) def. #25 Leandro Toledo (MINN 14.01) 6-3, 4-6, 6-1

2. Sasha Gozun (USF 13.39) def. Jack Hamburg (MINN 13.07) 6-3, 7-6(5)

3. Oliver Pramming (USF 13.32) def. Ruben Weber (MINN 13.27) 6-2, 6-4

4. Matic Spec (MINN 13.78) def. Igna. Gonzalez-Muniz (USF 13.09) 7-5, 6-3

5. Felix Corwin (MINN 13.58) def. Justin Roberts (USF 13.03) 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 1-0(5)

6. Mathieu Froment (MINN 12.84) def. Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF 13.21) 7-6(5), 4-6, 1-0(5)

Doubles competition

1. #37 Oliver Pramming/Justin Roberts (USF) def. #66 Mathieu Froment/Jack Hamburg (MINN) 6-2

2. Sasha Gozun/Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF) vs. #80 Felix Corwin/Leandro Toledo (MINN) 4-5, unf

3. Roberto Cid/Igna. Gonzalez-Muniz (USF) def. Eric Frueh/Matic Spec (MINN) 6-2

Match Notes

Minnesota 10-5 (1-0 Big Ten); National ranking #25

South Florida 13-4 (1-0 AAC); National ranking #21

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

_______________________________________________________

What's Coming Up

There are 2 big tournaments that get started over the next 2 days with both in the state of California.

The higher profile one is in Indian Wells where 3 of the top 4 teams in the country will be in action at the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge.  Play starts on Friday and finishes on Sunday.  

Current ITA Rankings of Participants: #1 Oklahoma, #3 Baylor, #4 USC, #20 Tulsa, #28 California, #29 Columbia, and both BYU and Purdue are unranked.

Longhorns Roast the Buckeyes & Red Raiders Take The Luck Out Of The Irish, LMU Upsets Utah

After dropping a 4-3 thriller to Ohio State earlier in the year at the National Indoors, Texas reversed its fortune today and took out #11 Ohio State 4-1 in a match that the Horns seemed in control of just about the entire way.  Ohio State was 15-3 in doubles coming into this one but Texas got the point by winning at 2 and 3 by scores of 6-4 and 6-2.

With the nearly unbeatable Soren Hess-Olesen at 1, Texas knew it had at least 1 point in the bag and Soren quickly delivered that point with his 17th consecutive win with a 6-1, 6-3 thrashing of Chris Diaz.  The Buckeye junior had one opening in the match after going up 2-0 in the 2nd but Hess-Olesen came back and won 6 of the next 7 games to close it out.

Ralf Steinbach would get Ohio State on the board at #5 singles with a 7-6(4), 6-1 over Nick Naumann.  Naumann had 3 chances to take the opening set when Steinbach served at 5-6, 15-40 but Steinbach forced his way to the net on each of the 3 points and managed to put 2 away with Naumann going long on a lob on the other.  In the 1st set tiebreak after Steinbach got the early mini-break to go up 1-0, Naumann got overruled on a Steinbach serve, which happened right in front of the chair, and Naumann never really seemed to recover.