Coaching Updates & Other News & Notes

Southern Illinois women's head coach Audra Anderson was promoted to the Director of Tennis and will now assume the role as the new men's head coach after the departure of Dann Nelson to UTRGV. Anderson has gone 140-83 (.627) in nine seasons at SIU which gives her the best winning percentage in school history. Jonny Rigby, who graduated this past May, will serve as a graduate assistant for a program that is now going year-to-year due to the financial woes in the state of Illinois. Normally I add a picture when the school puts its news release on Twitter or Facebook but as far as I can see they didn't put it on social media anywhere which is pretty poor considering how quiet things are this time of year.

Thursday Conference Tournament Results

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

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

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

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

Kentucky Holds Off Bama, FSU Slides Past Duke, Wisconsin Wins In Des Moines, Georgia Tech Tops NC State

Friday and Saturday brought us a ton of upsets but things leveled out on Sunday with most higher ranked teams holding court and getting the win.

Florida State capped off a nice weekend by defeating No. 66 Duke 5-2. The Seminoles claimed the doubles point by sweeping all three courts and then it took four opening sets in singles.

Friday night's hero, Marco Nunez, was first off the court with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Vincent Lin at No. 2 and his teammate Jose Gracia would put the Noles up 3-0 with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Ryan Dickerson at No. 5.

Saturday Recap: Cal Wins The Big Slam; Penn State Still Unbeaten, Mississippi State Rides the Wave

It was Big Slam Saturday at The Farm and as expected Cal and Stanford gave us another 4-3 classic. Last season each team won at the other's place and this year is starting off the same after Cal gutted out a 4-3 win in a match that took 3 hours and 59 minutes.

The 52-minute doubles point was extremely tight with breaks hard to come by at both #1 and #3. Cal's #2 team of Andre Goransson and Billy Griffith jumped out to a 5-2 lead but Stanford's Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski would come back and take five straight to win it 7-5.

The match at #1 stayed on serve until Stanford's Maciek Romanowicz double faulted on match point at 30-40 to give Cal's Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat the 7-5 win.

ITA Women's National Team Indoor Preview

The second-largest team tournament in collegiate tennis behind the NCAAs is the ITA National Team Indoor event. 15 schools advanced in Kick-Off Regionals to join host Wisconsin in Madison in the prestigious event that lasts from Friday through Monday. Last year, North Carolina dropped only 2 points in its 4 matches to clinch its 2nd title in 3 years. Lots of questions come into the tournament - can UNC match its title run after two of its three stars left? Can Vanderbilt show the world that its NCAA title isn't a fluke? Will UGA turn its consistency into a national title? Will a new team emerge from Madison as a top-tier team?

Friday Recap: Pokes Take Out The Deacs, Illini Dabs The Duke, Seminoles Roll The Tide, Tulane Wins Thriller

There was a solid schedule of matches on Friday and fortunately for us viewers almost all of them had a live stream available. There were a pair of top 25 teams going head to head and as expected both were close matches. #7 Illinois held on for a 4-3 road win at #24 Duke while #25 Oklahoma State pulled off the upset and beat #11 Wake Forest.

Oklahoma State took the doubles point with wins at #1 and #2 and then picked up first sets at #3, #5, and #6 while Wake took the rest. It looked like Dennis Uspensky was going to get the first set at #5 but Tristan Meraut broke him and then took the tiebreak 7-4.

Thursday Recap: USC Over UCLA 4-2, Tennessee Survives Against Alabama

UCLA got off to a good start by going up early breaks on all 3 doubles courts and would cruise to wins at 2 and 3.  Singles would be a different story because USC's Eric Johnson, Roberto Quiroz, Max De Vroome, and Nick Crystal would take the opening set at 2, 3, 5, and 6 and then those 4 would pretty much run away with the 2nd sets to close out a 4-2 win.  UCLA's Mackenzie McDonald picked up the only singles point for the Bruins as he took it to #12 Yannick Hanfmann 6-3, 6-3.

This match was supposed to be shown on TV on the Pac 12 network but the USC/UCLA women's match ran 90 minutes long and with the singles portion of this one only lasting 80 minutes that meant it was over before the broadcast ever started.

Normally you'd think a USC/UCLA match would pack them in but when you play it on a Thursday at 2pm local time this is the kind of crowd you get.

Let's go SC! @USCMensTennis at UCLA to end the regular season. #FightOn pic.twitter.com/E4b71YtSDt
— Aubrey Kragen (@aubreykragen) April 16, 2015

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. 

Sunday Preview - Illinois at Texas A&M + A Few Other Interesting Storylines

Another day brings another big match for Illinois as the Illini will try to make it 2 Top 10 wins in as many days after making the 100 mile trek from Austin to College Station. What's still unknown is whether we'll see the Illini's #1 Farris Gosea but I'd have to say that I would be more than surprised if he was available for action today.

For Texas A&M to take this one they'll need to play much better than they did on Friday night against a Vanderbilt team that was down its #1 while for Illinois to take it they'll need to play with the same urgency and tenacity that they played with yesterday against Texas.  The biggest thing going in Illinois's favor is that they'll be taking the court with the confidence of knowing they've already beat one top 10 team on the road so why not a second.

The guys on these teams are fairly familiar with each other with Illinois having made a trip to College Station each of the last 3 years to play in the Texas A&M Conference Challenge which takes place outdoors in October.  The familiarity with the courts and the potentially windy playing conditions will be a plus for Illinois as opposed to teams that only come down once every so often for a dual match.  This will also be the 3rd dual match these 2 have played in the last 13 months with Illinois winning at home last year and Texas A&M winning in Houston in a consolation match at the National Indoors.

Roll Tide Roll - Bama Upsets #9 Ole Miss 4-2 + a few other results anda look towards Sunday

Who saw this one coming?  Alabama shocks #9 Ole Miss 4-2 in T-Town.  The same Alabama team that came into the match with an 8-9 record with the 8 wins being over powerhouses UAB, Samford, Jackson State (4X), and Jacksonville State (2X).  The same Ole Miss team that routed a top 15 Vanderbilt team last weekend and the same team that gave #1 Oklahoma all it wanted at the National Indoors.  Total head-scratcher....

Ole Miss played well in doubles and took the point by winning at 1 and 3 but singles got off to a rough start when William Kallberg retired 3 games in at #4 singles.  The Bama recap said it was due to injury but didn't specify what kind of injury but it must have been severe enough to force him to throw in the towel.  Ole Miss regained the lead when Stefan Lindmark wiped the court with Danny Kerznerman 6-1, 6-0 at #2 but then Stuart Kenyon, who came in with a 5-7 dual match record, did the same and cleaned Zvonimir Babic's clock 6-1, 6-2 at #5.  The biggest shocker came at #1 singles when Bama freshman Korey Lovett, who was 6-6 in dual match play, thumped #60 Nik Scholtz 6-2, 6-2.  It was only Scholtz's 2nd dual match loss of the year and just his 3rd in the last 2 years.  With the Tide up 3-2 it would be Bama junior Becker O'Shaughnessey who would seal the deal with a 6-4, 6-3 win at #3 singles over Gustav Hansson.

Aztec Empire too strong for Bears, Trojans pushed by Toreros, Cowboys lasso in the Runnin' Rebs

The San Diego area was a hotbed of activity on Thursday with close to a dozen college teams in town to participate in the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships.  Several of them decided to take advantage of the warm sunny weather by scheduling a dual match the day before the individual tournament started and the results were pretty close across the board.

The biggest upset came at San Diego State where the 60th ranked Aztecs upset #22 Cal 4-2.   Cal made a shift in the singles lineup and moved Greg Bayane up to 3 from his usual spot at 5/6 and with that Billy Griffith and J.T. Nishimura each played 1 spot lower than normal.  The changes didn't pay off as SDSU swept all 3 spots in addition to taking the all important doubles point.

Hokie Hokie Hi, Dunk City Upsets the U, Cowboy Up, Ivy Power

Saturday didn't have any Top 10 showdowns but there were several solid matches between ranked teams.  The biggest upset of the day, in terms of ranking, came in Blacksburg as #37 Virginia Tech took it to #22 Penn State 4-1. The Hokies took 10 of 11 sets in singles after dropping the doubles point.  Penn State has now lost 2 of its last 3 and is looking at a tough road next weekend when they head to Chicago for the National Indoors against the best of the best with its opening match against #1 USC.


VT Recap
PSU Recap

#37 Virginia Tech 4, #22 Penn State 1

Singles

1. #35 Amerigo Contini (VT) def. Leonard Stakhovsky (PSU) 7-5, 6-3

2. #61 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT) def. Alex Fennell (PSU) 6-2, 6-2

3. Joao Monteiro (VT) vs. Matt Barry (PSU) 6-3, 5-5, unfinished

4. Hunter Koontz (VT) def. Roman Trkulja (PSU) 6-2, 6-2

5. Aws Laaribi (PSU) vs. Edoardo Tessaro (VT) 2-6, 7-6, unfinished

6. #94 Florian Nicoud (VT) def. Nika Dolidze (PSU) 6-2, 6-4

Order of Finish: 4, 2, 6, 1

Doubles

1. Andreas Bjerrehus/Amerigo Contini (VT) def. Matt Barry/Alex Fennell (PSU) 6-2

2. Leonard Stakhovsky/Aws Laaribi (PSU) def. Jai Corbett/Joao Monteiro (VT) 7-6 (7-5)

3. Michael Reilly/Roman Trkulja (PSU) def. Hunter Koontz/Florian Nicoud (VT) 7-5

Order of Finish: 1, 2