MVC Finals: Wichita State Wins An Epic 4-3 Thriller

I thought I had seen it all after witnessing last year's 4-3 thriller but I think today's finish may have taken the cake. This was the sixth year in a row that Wichita State and Drake had met in the finals of the Missouri Valley Championships with Drake having won four of the last five. The weather in Wichita was definitely not ideal with match time temperatures right at 50 degrees, gray skies, and a stiff wind that was just under 20 miles per hour.

Wichita State came out fired up in doubles and would grab its first lead when Sergio de Vilchez and Eddie Stoica broke Calum MacGeoch to go up 3-1 at No. 3. Wichita State's No. 2 team of Miroslav Herzan and Haru Inoue would take their first lead when they broke Ben Lott to go up 4-2. Then seconds later Wichita State would go up a break at No. 1 when Jocelyn Devilliers and Tin Ostojic broke Bayo Philips to go up 3-2.

MVC Saturday Recap: Wichita State & Drake Will Meet In The Finals

The finals are set at the 2016 Missouri Valley Championships after both Wichita State and Drake ran through their competition from Illinois. In the opening match of the day the No. 1 seed Wichita State met the No. 3 seed Illinois State. The weather wasn't exactly ideal at match time (53 degrees/15 mph winds/overcast) but it improved as the day went on.

Wichita State's No. 2 team of Miroslav Herzan and Haru Inoue didn't have any issues with the conditions as they rolled, and I mean rolled, to a 6-0 win over Illinois State's Christoffer Greve and Dylan Steffens in a match that took all of 11 minutes.

Saturday Recap: Lamar Upsets Rice, ODU Over W&M, Drake Beats Wichita State, Ivies, GGC Outduels HPU, & More

There were two bigger stories on Saturday - the rain that wiped out several matches and Lamar upsetting No. 28 Rice 4-1. The bad weather out in California washed out the Oregon/Cal and San Diego/Santa Clara matches while UNC Wilmington and VCU were rained out in Richmond. Both of the matches in California are set to be played on Sunday while UNC Wilmington and VCU won't make their match up.

Earlier this season Lamar upset then No. 47 Iowa 4-2 but today's win over Rice took it to a new level. Lamar took the doubles point by winning the deciding match at No. 2 in a tiebreak and then the Cardinals took four opening sets in singles. Lamar junior Nikita Lis rolled over Tommy Bennett 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 but Rice senior Adam Gustafsson countered with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Sebastian Santibanez at No. 3.

Ride Sally Ride - Mustangs Run Over The Pokes, Boise State Comes Up Big Again, Texas Takes Out Tulsa

The hits keep on coming and on today's playlists we heard the 1966 classic Mustang Sally after No. 36 SMU ran all over No. 5 Oklahoma State 4-0.

SMU jumped out to the early 1-0 lead after taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 and then the Mustangs claimed four opening sets in singles. SMU's Nate Lammons made it 2-0 with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Julian Cash at No. 1 and then Hunter Johnson put the Mustangs a point away from clinching with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Arjun Kadhe at No. 2. Redshirt junior Tony Russell would bring it home for SMU with a 7-6, 6-3 upset win over Lukas Finzelberg at No. 5.

Tuesday Recap: TCU Slides Past Northwestern, Kentucky Stuns Illinois, Drake Beats Oregon, Tulsa Tops Dartmouth

Usually Tuesdays are reserved for the the release of the rankings, but today should have been renamed 4-3day with one match after another going down to the wire.

TCU and Northwestern were originally supposed to meet a few weeks ago in Evanston but due to bad weather TCU's flight was cancelled so they made up the match up today in Fort Worth. Today in Fort Worth there were high winds anticipated so play was moved indoors though evidently it never got as windy as forecasted.

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.

News and Notes - UTR vs. ITA, Davis Cup, Attendance Race, Miami Streaming, Me in Des Moines

The first thing I wanted to mention is that I wrote an article for the Tennis Recruiting Network that ran today with the topic being the Road to Tulsa. It talks about the teams that I think are contenders for the national championship along with the others that have some work to do so make sure you give it a read.

After the release of the latest Oracle/ITA rankings,  I wanted to do a comparison between those and the most recent Universal Tennis Ratings. Below is a chart of the top 25 men and women sorted by UTR and ITA rankings.

Friday Recap: Drake Raps Past Iowa, SEC & ACC Play Underway, Lobos Top BYU

While conference play got underway in the SEC and ACC there was a non-conference battle brewing in Des Moines between #36 Drake and #33 Iowa. The two schools, separated by just 115 miles, are the only two schools in the state of Iowa that play Division 1 men's tennis so bragging rights were at stake Friday night. A boisterous crowd of close to 200, with a decent amount of black and gold, was on hand to see if Drake could make it five in a row over the Hawkeyes.

Drake got off to a good start at #3 doubles when Ben Stride and Calum MacGeoch jumped out to a 3-0 lead on Iowa's Robin Haden and Nils Hallestrand. Drake would hold on the deciding point to stretch the lead to 4-1 and then break again for 5-1. MacGeoch would serve it out from 40-30 to give Drake the 6-1 win in 24 minutes.

SC Stomps Stanford, Michigan Tops Washington, Texas Tech Beats the Pack, & More

The featured match of the day took place in Palo Alto with Stanford hosting USC in a non conference matchup. Stanford had dropped the doubles point in three consecutive matches and it didn't get off to the best start after USC's Rob Bellamy and Jake DeVine picked up a quick 6-2 win at #3. However a short while later Stanford's Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski would win 6-3 at #2 and then Tom Fawcett and Maciek Romanowicz sealed the doubles point with a 6-4 win at #1.

USC quickly turned things around in singles by taking five opening sets and Nick Crystal needed just over an hour to finish off David Wilczynski 6-3, 6-1 at #2. Stanford would end up being just as dominant in the second set as USC was in the first because the Cardinal took four second sets while USC's Jack Jaede forced a split at #5.

Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Wins At Illinois, Ohio State Outlasts Florida, Memphis Wins in Oxford, & More

Texas A&M had been on the road for the last week and a half, and had lost its last three, but it managed to come from behind today to beat Illinois 4-2 despite playing without one of its top starters. Texas A&M senior Shane Vinsant missed today's match against Illinois due to a blister on his foot but the Aggies managed to stay focused in his absence and the team performed much better in singles than it did in doubles. The weather was right around 50 degrees outside but they played it indoors anyway. I was a little surprised at the lighter turnout of around 175 because I've been to Atkins in the past for some big matches and have seen well over 500 on hand.

Friday Recap: Ohio St Hammers A&M, Nwestern Overwhelms NCST, OKST survies GAST

Sometimes rematches result in different outcomes and sometimes they don't - tonight's Ohio State/Texas A&M match in Columbus turned out to be the latter. These teams met just five days ago in the National Indoors consolation rounds with Ohio State pulling out a 4-3 squeaker but this evening it was all Buckeyes.

Last week Texas A&M won the doubles point, though Herkko Pollanen didn't play, but tonight with Pollanen playing at #1 with Mikael Torpegaard they and the team cruised past A&M.

Ohio State swapped Martin Joyce and Ralf Steinbach at #5 and #6 and Hugo Di Feo and Chris Diaz at #2 and #3. Texas A&M swapped Jordi Arconada and Shane Vinsant at #2 and #3 which meant both of those matchups stayed the same from the previous meeting. Harrison Adams also returned to the lineup tonight after sitting out on Sunday. (box score from last week is below tonight's box score)

Wake Rocks OU, Boilers Stun Tulsa, Rice Claws LSU, Nwstern Too Good For Duke, Dartmouth Out Greens The Wave

While the final day of the Pac-12/SEC Showdown in Los Angeles was a washout, it was warm and dry at the indoor facilities in Norman and Tulsa.

Wake Forest was coming off a tough loss on Friday to #25 Oklahoma State but the Demon Deacons made up for it today by taking out #2 Oklahoma. Wake played a solid doubles point as its #2 team of Petros Chrysochos and Jon Ho ran away with a quick 6-1 win at #2. Wake's #1 team of Christian Seraphim and Skander Mansouri broke the Axel Alvarez serve to go up 2-0 but Alvarez and Spencer Papa broke back to make it 2-1. It stayed on serve until Wake broke Spencer Papa's 5-6 service game on the deciding point to take the match 7-5 and give Wake the usually all-important doubles point. The match at #3 was on serve when Wake got the clincher at #1.

Oklahoma was playing without its #2 singles starter, Andrew Harris, since he's still recovering from knee tendonitis so everyone except Axel Alvarez had to shift up a spot in the lineup. OU had to do the same thing last week so it wasn't a surprise to any of the guys.

The Madness Has BEGUN!!

The 1st round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament is in the books and while there were plenty of 4-0 blowouts (20) there were several nail-biters with 5 matches finishing with a 4-3 score and 2 of those 5 finishing in a 3rd set tiebreak.  The weather played a big role on Day 1 with several regionals experiencing delays and some having to move indoors.

Quick Summary:

• #1 seeds went 16-0 versus #4 seeds with 15 of 16 being a 4-0 final.  Va Tech/ETSU 4-1 was the exception.
• #2 seeds were 13-3 versus #3 seeds 
• Drake, Pepperdine, and San Diego State were the #3 seeds to crash the party. 
• 20 matches finished with a 4-0 final
• 4 matches finished with a 4-1 final
• 3 matches finished with a 4-2 final
• 5 matches finished with a 4-3 finals (2 were 7-6 in 3rd)  
• Teams winning the doubles point went 24-7
• San Diego State, Pepperdine, Stanford, Minnesota, Columbia, Northwestern, and Drake were the 7 teams to lose the doubles point but yet win the match.  
• Regionals delayed by weather: USC, UCLA, Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, Illinois, Oklahoma

NCAA 1st Round Previews: North Carolina & Illinois Regionals

North Carolina Regional
Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center - Chapel Hill, NC

[13] North Carolina (21-10) vs. [49-64] William & Mary (16-12) - Friday 1pm - William & Mary got the automatic bid by beating the College of Charleston 4-1 in the Colonial Championship while North Carolina got an at-large bid after falling to #3 Virginia 4-0 in the ACC semifinals. William & Mary went 0-7 against ranked opponents with the closest loss being 4-3 to Old Dominion.

The UTR Power 6 is the combined UTRs of the starting 6 (rounded to a whole #).  An individual win/loss to anyone with a UTR difference of 1.0 or greater would be considered an upset.   

Doubles Records: UNC 22-9, W&M 20-8

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: UNC 84, W&M 75

Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Weathers The Storm & Drake Rises Out Of The Valley

Championship Sunday (Part 1) lived up to the advance billing with the SEC and Missouri Valley delivering heart pounding thrillers.

When #1 and #2 play you expect to see a great match and that's what Georgia and Texas A&M delivered on Sunday afternoon in College Station.  Texas A&M got off to a fast start in doubles by going up early breaks at 2 and 3 and once A&M had the lead on those courts they would not relinquish it the rest of the way.  The A&M #3 duo of AJ Catanzariti/Arthur Rinderknech finished first winning 6-3 then just as Georgia's #1 team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland were 6-3 winners A&M's #2 team of Jeremy Efferding and Jordan Szabo would clinch the point with a 6-3 win themselves.  

Texas A&M carried the momentum from doubles over to singles as they jumped out to early break leads at #1, #5 and #6 singles while Georgia got the early break lead at #4. Texas A&M's AJ Catanzariti would take the first set at #5 and Shane Vinsant and "Artillery" Arthur Rinderknech would get late breaks to take the opening set 6-4 at #2 and #3.  Georgia's Ben Wagland cruised to a 6-2 opening set at #4 and both Austin Smith and Paul Oosterbaan would come back from a break down to claim the opening sets at #1 and #6.  Smith was down 4-2 before rallying to win the set 7-6(5) while Oosterbaan came back from 5-2 down to take the set 7-5.

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.

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).