Chang Streaking in Godfrey, Perez Wins Another Doubles Title, Kirchheimer Gets E-Ville WC, Ole Miss Schedule

The weather in Greater St. Louis has been extremely hot and humid this week but that hasn't slowed down 2013 Rice graduate Jonathan Chang as he has blazed his way into the quarterfinals at the $25K Godfrey, Illinois, USA F24 Futures. Chang came into this week's Futures event having won just one main draw match but he's managed to come through qualies and knock off a pair off a pair of guys that spent most of last year in the ITA top 10. Chang defeated Georgia Tech's Chris Eubanks 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round then today he came back from a 5-2 third set deficit to beat recent Tulane graduate Dominik Koepfer 6-7(3), 6-2, 7-5 in a match that lasted 3 hours and 2 minutes. Chang's quarterfinal opponent will be former Tennessee All-American Rhyne Williams while the other quarterfinal match in the top half of the draw will be between former Tennessee Vol Tennys Sandgren and former Georgia Bulldog Wil Spencer.

Chaotic Sunday - SMU, Texas, and Stanford Pull Off Upsets

What a crazy day it was on Sunday with not one, not two, but three regional hosts going down. The day started off in College Station with the resumption of Saturday's match between Texas A&M and Texas and it finished in Lubbock with SMU kicking the door down and stunning Texas Tech.

When the season started if you told me that Texas would be in Tulsa for the NCAA Round of 16 I would have told you to go see a doctor. Well Texas made a believer of me and many today after going into enemy territory and knocking off Texas A&M in a 4-3 thriller.

The match originally began on Saturday but after Texas A&M took the doubles point the match was stopped early in singles due to rain. Play resumed Sunday morning at 11am central and within a matter of minutes Texas had five first sets in the bag after Rodrigo Banzer, Adrian Ortiz, and George Goldhoff closed out sets on 4, 2, and 1.

NCAA First/Second Round Previews: TCU & Cal Regionals

TCU Regional
Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center - Fort Worth, TX

[4] TCU Horned Frogs (24-3) vs. [49-64] Jackson State Tigers (6-18) - Friday 1pm CT - The only similarity between these two is that they both earned their leagues automatic berth with TCU defeating Texas Tech to win the Big 12 while Jackson State beat Alabama State to win the SWAC. TCU was one of the best teams in the country this year while Jackson State lost three times as many matches as they won. Jackson State won three matches in the SWAC, beat a D2 school, and beat a NAIA school twice while going 0-7 against ranked opponents. To make matters even worse Jackson State's post season roster does not include their usual No. 3 and No. 4 singles players, Miguel Martin Gomez and Stylianos Gkontsaris.  

Doubles Records: TCU 19-8, Jackson State 5-16

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: TCU 85, Jackson State 65

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.

Sunday Recap: Owls Shred #9 Texas Tech, Hogs Tops Rebs, USC Survives Oregon, Dawgs Tame the Cats

Rice was looking to win the Rice Invitational for the ninth year in a row but to achieve that feat it'd have to find a way to beat a top 10 team for the first time in 10 years. Both Rice and Texas Tech beat William & Mary and Drake on Saturday so both were playing well coming into today's finale.

Texas Tech's Felipe Soares and Hugo Dojas won 6-4 at No. 1 doubles but Rice's Jake Hansen and Emanuel Llamas came back from *1-4 down to win 7-5 at No. 3.  Rice's Jamie Malik and Adam Gustafsson trailed 6-3 in the tiebreak at No. 3 but would fight off a total of five match points to win a marathon tiebreak 14-12 to give Rice the doubles point and early 1-0 lead.

Sunday recap: Georgia Knocks off Ohio State, Virginia Scalps Florida State, Oklahoma Beats Cal, Florida Blasts Ole Miss

There were several close matches on Sunday but there was only one that saw a top-five team go down. Georgia, ranked No. 19, was hosting No. 4 Ohio State on a mild and breezy day in Athens. After a week of sunny skies and temperatures in the high-70s, the conditions in Athens weren't as favorable with cloudy skies, an increasing breeze, and temperature hovering in the mid-50s. Despite the conditions a crowd of just over 1000 filled into the Dan Magill Tennis Complex and they were treated to a stellar performance by the home-standing Bulldogs.

Georgia Wins!! (Photo Courtesy of Bill Kallenberg)

I personally thought Ohio State would roll in doubles, but Georgia seemed determined to not let that happen.

Friday Recap: Noles Rally Past Hokies, Upsets Galore In the SEC, Tulane Outlasts San Diego, UNF Upsets Georgia St

Friday was a wild day of tennis with several teams coming from behind to pull out thrilling wins. The biggest comeback of the day took place in Blacksburg as No. 23 Florida State appeared to be down and out against No. 40 Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech took the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 but Florida State turned it around in singles and took first sets at one through four.

FSU's Benjamin Lock cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Joao Monteiro at No. 1 but Virginia Tech answered with a 7-6, 6-3 win from Aaron Gomez at No. 6.

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.

Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Holds Off Florida, NC State Upsets Wake, Ohio State Wins At OU & More

In what had to be the match of the day it was No. 8 Texas A&M outlasting No. 30 Florida 4-3 in 3 hours and 51 minutes. Florida jumped out to the early lead by taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 but Texas A&M came out ready to go in singles and took five opening sets.

Jordi Arconada was off the court first with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Chase Perez-Blanco at No. 3 but Florida's Gordon Watson answered with a 6-4, 6-4 win over AJ Catanzariti at No. 5.

Texas A&M senior Jackson Withrow evened the match at 2-2 with a 7-6, 6-2 win over Florida freshman McClain Kessler at No. 6 but Florida retook the lead when freshman Alfredo Perez rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Texas A&M senior Harrison Adams.

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.

Gustav The Great Saves Ole Miss, TCU Wins Battle Over Stanford, Cal Fights Off Texas

Saturday was a day for some great tennis in the state of Texas with Ole Miss winning a thriller over Baylor in Waco while TCU and Cal won battles over Stanford and Texas in Austin.

Ole Miss came into the match having only played 3 times all season while Baylor was playing its 5th match in the last 8 days. Baylor got off to a hot start in doubles and at one point led 5-1 at #1, 3-0 at #2, and 4-2 at #3 but unbelievably they'd only get 1 more game between the 3 courts combined. Julian Lenz and Will Little got that 1 game and finished off the match at #1 winning 6-2 but Ole Miss started chipping away at the deficit everywhere else. The Rebel's #3 team of Fabian Fallert and Grey Hamilton won 4 straight game to close out Felipe Rios and Jimmy Bendeck 6-4. The biggest momentum shift in that one came when Ole Miss was serving at 4-4, 15-40 and they managed to come back and get the hold. Moments later Stefan Lindmark and Ricardo Jorge completed their comeback by winning the final 6 games at #2 to win 6-3.

Saturday Preview - Stanford/TCU & Ole Miss/Baylor

#18 Stanford (5-1) vs. #2 TCU (2-0) - (Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge - Austin) - 12pm est/11am cst - Live Scoring - Stanford is coming off back-to-back shutouts of Santa Clara and San Diego State while TCU hasn't played since squeaking out a 4-3 win over Oklahoma State during the Kick-Off Weekend two weeks ago. Stanford missed out qualifying for the National Indoors since it lost to Columbia 4-3 so this weekend is a chance for the Cardinal to pick up a couple of ranked wins. TCU is looking to use this weekend to toughen up some more before going to Charlottesville for the NTIs.

Doubles Records: Stanford 6-0, TCU 1-1

Men's Kick-Off Weekend Regional Previews

There will be 15 men's regionals taking place this weekend with 2 of the 15 getting started on Friday. I'll start off by previewing the USC and Illinois Regionals since they both start on Friday and I'll work my through all 15 of them by Friday evening. Keep checking back for updates since I'll just be adding on to this post. FYI, the numbers beside the school name are each player's current Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) as of 1/20/16. 

USC Regional (Fri/Sat) - Marks Stadium (no live scoring due to construction)

#57 UC Davis [4] at #8 USC [1] – 4pm est/1pm pst – USC Twitter - This will be the dual-match opener for USC with the Trojans expected to start at least 3 freshmen while UC Davis kicked off its season on Wednesday with a 4-0 loss at #18 Stanford. The Aggies return all 6 starters from last year's team including its top player #38 Alec Adamson who had a tremendous fall winning four matches over ranked opponents. I don't foresee UC Davis getting on the board in this one with USC just too strong top to bottom. Prediction: USC 4-0 (Result: USC 7-0)

Kentucky Upsets #13 Duke, Washington Too Much for #12 Texas, Northwestern Rolls

Well that didn't take long - on the first weekend of the season a pair of Top 15 teams got upset as unranked Kentucky went into Durham and beat #13 Duke 4-3 and #62 Washington rebounded from a Friday loss to UCSB and knocked off #12 Texas by a 4-3 score. As I mentioned when the preseason rankings came out a week ago, the rankings didn't really take into account the number of starters that some teams lost and thus ranked a few of them way too high. Both Texas and Duke fell into that category because each team had to replace 4 starters and most of the replacements were freshman.

Anyway back to the day's events starting first in Durham. Duke and Kentucky battled it out in doubles with all 3 matches going back and forth. Kentucky went up an early double break at #1 and led 3-0 but Duke would claw back and end up taking it in a tiebreak. Duke had the break lead at #2 but lost it only to break late and take it 7-5. Duke also had the early break lead at #3 but Kentucky came back to forth a tiebreak which Duke ultimately won.

Top 20 - Who Is Coming Back & Who Is Departing (Part 3)

I looked over 1-10 and 11-15 a few days ago so today I'll look at the teams that finished the year ranked 16-20.

The new recruits section is from tennisrecruiting.net and from school releases so its possible some of those guys may not end up where they are currently showing. Several teams will probably have some guys coming in from outside the U.S. so we probably won't know any names until the schools put out a release or we see the name on the roster in August or January. BC=Blue Chip, 5*=5 star, etc.

NCAA 1st Round Previews: Virginia & Ole Miss Regionals

Virginia Regional
Snyder Tennis Center - Charlottesville, VA

[3] Virginia (23-3) vs. [49-64] St. John's (15-8) - Friday  1pm - #3 Virginia received the ACC's automatic bid after beating #12 Wake Forest 4-2 in the ACC Championship while St. John's got the Big East's automatic bid after defeating Marquette 4-2 in the Big East Championship. St. John's finished the year on a 6-match winning streak and won 11 of its final 12.  The Red Storm went 0-6 against ranked teams on the year.

Doubles Records: Virginia 23-3, St. John's 11-11

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Virginia 87, St. John's 78

Saturday Recap: TCU Plows Over Texas, UGA/aTm Win In SEC Semis, Cal Wins The Big Slam + Conference Tournaments

Saturday was another great day of college tennis action with more than 2000 fans filling the stands in Fort Worth for the TCU/Texas match.  TCU hadn't beaten Texas since 1996 but that slump came to an end as TCU got it done 4-1.

TCU started off by taking the doubles point with a 6-1 win at #2 (Trevor Johnson & Cameron Norrie) and 7-6(4) win at #3 (Guillermo Nuñez & Hudson Blake) .  It looked like TCU would take the point a bit easier but Texas's #1 team of Soren Hess-Olesen and Lloyd Glasspool came back from 5-3 down to win 7-6(5) which made the match at #3 the decider.

TCU kept the momentum flowing in singles by taking 4 opening sets and they'd get the 3 singles victories they needed with all 3 coming in straight sets.  Cameron Norrie was off first with a 6-4, 6-0 win at #3 then Arnau Dachs rolled Clement Homs 6-1, 6-3 at #5. Texas's Soren Hess-Olesen would win at #1 singles 6-3, 6-4 to pull Texas to within 3-1 but a short while later TCU senior Will Stein would clinch the historic win with a 6-4, 7-6(8) at #6 singles over Nick Naumann.

Saturday Preview: SEC Semis + 2 Big Ones In the Big 12

Texas is the place to be today with 4 matches taking place between Top 20 teams.  It is semifinal Saturday at the SEC Tournament in College Station with the top 4 seeds set to meet up.  There's been a threat of rain each of the last 2 days which has forced matches to be moved up but as of now it looks like the rain should stay away until later in the day.

In Fort Worth, #7 TCU will host #10 Texas and over in Lubbock #16 Texas Tech will try to make it 2 huge upsets in the last week as they host #2 Baylor.


#2 Texas A&M (19-4) vs. #3 Mississippi State (19-6) - 1pm est - Live Scoring - Texas A&M won the regular season meeting 4-1 in Starkville (box score below) but it was a match that came down to the wire with Mississippi State in a winning position on the 2 courts that didn't finish. State gutted one out yesterday against Florida while Texas A&M rolled over LSU so the Aggies probably have some fresher legs. 

Friday Recap: Gophers Shock Illini & SEC Tournament Follows Form

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside at night the Minnesota Golden Gophers jumped out from behind the tree and yelled boo and shocked #3 Illinois 4-3.

Minnesota took the doubles point for the 20th time in 24 matches by getting wins at #1 (Jack Hamburg/Mathieu Froment) and #2 (Felix Corwin/Leandro Toledo) with the win at #2 coming in the tiebreak.  Illinois had won the doubles point in the previous 6 matches but is now just 15-10 on the year in doubles.

Despite falling behind, many people including myself thought Illinois would turn it on in singles and still get it done but Minnesota said not tonight.

The biggest singles upset came in the first match to finish as Minnesota's Jack Hamburg snapped #57 Aleks Vukic's 14-match winning streak with a 6-4, 6-4 win at #5 singles.  Vukic hadn't dropped a set since March 15th.  For those that like tracking the UTRs of each player you'll notice that there was a difference of more than 1.00 which means this is definitely an upset.

Saturday Preview: Texas A&M/TCU, Georgia/Ole Miss, UCLA/Cal, USC/Stanford

Friday was a great day of tennis so hopefully these 4 matches below can bring us just as much enjoyment.

TCU has already beat Texas A&M once and that was on the road - can they win this one at home? Does Georgia wrap up a share of the SEC regular season title and the #1 seed in next week's SEC Tournament or does Ole Miss make a strong push for the top 10? Stanford has already beat both Cal and UCLA this year - could they possibly also beat USC today? Does UCLA regroup from the Stanford loss and beat an improving Cal? We'll have our answers in a few hours.


#7 Texas A&M (18-3) at #10 TCU (18-6) - 2pm est/1pm cst - This will be a rematch from the 1st day of the season when TCU went into College Station and beat Texas A&M 4-2 (box score below). Both teams have shuffled the lineup a good bit so it's to take with the only expected rematch to come at #5 singles between Catanzariti and Lugones.