Saturday Recap: Mississippi State Routs Illinois, Wake Holds Off Michigan, USC Pulls Away From Ga Tech, & More

It's hard to believe that going into the fall Matt Roberts only had two returning players from his 2014-15 squad yet here we sit today with Mississippi State heading to the Round of 16 after routing Illinois 4-0.

State got off to a quick start in doubles and went up early breaks at No. 2 and No. 3. State's No. 3 team of Rishab Agarwal and Niclas Braun would win four straight games to go up 5-2 and they'd end up winning 6-3. State's Trevor Foshey and Luka Sucevic led 4-2 at No. 2 but Illinois's Alex Jesse and Aiden Jiang would end up breaking back and forcing a tiebreak. Before the tiebreak really got going State's No. 1 team of Mate Cutura and Vaughn Hunter would break serve to win 7-5 and clinch the doubles point. It was the first time since mid-February that State had won the doubles point in back-to-back matches.

Friday Men's Recap - LSU and Oregon Pull Off Seeding Upsets

The opening day of the NCAA Tournament is in the books and as you can see from the scores below there were a few surprises. All the top seeds cruised with only Illinois yielding a point while a pair of 33-48 seeds pulled off mild upsets.

Friday Finals:
[3] UCLA def. Weber State 4-0
[4] TCU def. Jackson State 4-0
[6] Wake Forest def. Coastal Carolina 4-0
[10] USC def. UNLV 4-0
[11] Oklahoma def. UT Arlington 4-0
[12] Texas A&M def. George Washington 4-0
[15] Illinois def. Western Michigan 4-1
[17-32] Texas def. Lamar 4-0
[17-32] San Diego def. Vanderbilt 4-0
[17-32] Michigan def. East Tennessee State 4-3
[17-32] Georgia Tech def. UC Santa Barbara 4-1
[17-32] Mississippi State def. Memphis 4-1
[33-48] LSU def. Rice 4-3
[33-48] Oregon def. Tulsa 4-1

NCAA First/Second Round Previews: Wake Forest & Oklahoma Regionals

Wake Forest Regional
Wake Forest Tennis Complex - Winston-Salem, NC

[6] Wake Forest Demon Deacons (29-5) vs. [49-64] Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (21-3) - Friday 3pm ET - Wake Forest earned the ACC's automatic berth after defeating No. 1 Virginia in the finals of the conference tournament while Coastal Carolina won the Big South's automatic berth after defeating Presbyterian 4-3. CCU only faced one ranked team this season with Duke shutting them out 4-0. 

Doubles Records: Wake Forest 27-6, Coastal Carolina 15-9

UTR Starting 6 Power Rating: Wake Forest 84, Coastal Carolina 75

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.

TCU Wins Share of Big 12 & Conference Tournaments Underway

TCU won a share of the Big 12 regular season title with a 4-0 win over No. 43 Baylor in front of a huge crowd of 1816 - not bad for a Wednesday night.

Congrats to @TCUMensTennis and @RoditiTCUTennis on the #BIG12Championship! pic.twitter.com/rO3EGXbqz3

— TCU Equipment (@TCU_Equipment) April 21, 2016

Saturday Recap: TCU Hooks The Horns, Cal Men Take the Big Slam, Stanford Women Slam #1 Cal, Coastal Carolina Dancing

The first big match of the day took place in Austin between No. 18 Texas and No. 2 TCU. The Horned Frogs took the doubles point with a 6-1 win at No. 3 from Cameron Norrie and Alex Rybakov and a 7-6(1) win at No. 1 from Hudson Blake and Reese Stalder.

Texas turned it around in singles and claimed five opening sets to really put TCU on its heels. The only Horned Frog to win a first set was also the first one to finish as Cameron Norrie defeated George Goldhoff 6-4, 6-1 at No. 1.

TCU found its fire in the second set and took all six sets to send five of the six matches to a third set. Jerry Lopez put TCU ahead 3-0 after completing his comeback with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Michael Riechmann at No. 5.

Wednesday Recap: Buckeyes Tame The Cats, Cavs Too Strong For Gators, TCU Wins The Skillet

Usually we have to wait until the weekend to see top-25 matchups but we got a mid-week treat on Wednesday with three top-25 teams playing each other along with two other top-75 matchups.

The day started off in Lexington with No. 20 Kentucky and No. 5 Ohio State playing indoors due to high winds and the chance of rain.

Ohio State was able to claim the doubles point for 19th time in 23 tries after picking up wins at No. 1 and No. 3. The Buckeyes duo of Matt Mendez and Hugo Di Feo fell into an early 3-0 hole at No. 3 but rallied to take the next six games to close out Austin Hussey and Ryotaro Matsumura 6-3. Ohio State's Mikael Torpegaard and Martin Joyce led Nils Ellefsen and Enzo Wallart 5-3 at No. 1 but the Kentucky duo won the next two to even it at 5-5. Torpegaard and Joyce would take the next two games to close it out 7-5. The match at No. 2 was abandoned with Kentucky leading 6-5.

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.

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.

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)

Thursday Action: Early Upsets in the ACC & Mountain West & Late Drama in the Pac 12 and B1G

It was a day of close matches as we saw several lower seeds pull off upsets.  In the ACC, #75 Clemson beat #32 Louisville 4-3 and #55 Georgia Tech hammered #35 Notre Dame 4-0.  In the Mountain West unranked Nevada sent #67 Utah State packing win a 4-2 win and Boise State did the same to #69 Fresno State by knocking them off 4-0.  In the Big Ten, Michigan beat #48 Penn State 4-2 and Nebraska came from behind to beat Michigan State 4-3.  In the Pac 12, #50 Oregon looked like it was going to upset #25 Cal but the Bears rallied to win 4-3.  Read about each match below.

Clemson lost the regular season meeting against Louisville at home by a 5-2 score though none of the singles matches were repeats this time around.  Louisville won the doubles point last time with Clemson taking it this time.  Clemson got wins from Alejandro Augusto, Luke Johnson, and Hampton Drake with the freshman from Hilton Head providing the clincher at #6 singles by taking the 3rd set 6-0.  Below are some interviews from Clemson's youtube:

Saturday Recap: Texas Wins #300 For Center, TCU Keeps On Rolling, Green Wave Crash Down On Tulsa

Texas picked up win #300 for head coach Michael Center with a hard fought 4-1 win over Texas Tech.  The Red Raiders won the doubles point by winning tiebreaks at 2 and 3 but Texas was able to rally with singles wins from Soren Hess-Olesen, Adrien Berkowicz, Nick Naumann, and Clement Homs.

Texas recap

"I'm proud of the student-athletes I've had, not only this year but in the past, that have made contributions to our program while they were here and after their graduation," Center said after Saturday's win. "It has been very gratifying, and I'm looking forward to many more with this group."

"Every match is so hard to win in this conference and at this time of year," Center said. "We had some opportunities in doubles, but ended up losing two tiebreakers to put our backs against the wall. I know Texas Tech has a heck of a team in singles, but we played really well down the stretch and fought hard to get this win."

"Clement is strong, both physically and mentally, particularly in the moment when you really need him to step up," coach Michael Center said. "He is just a man out there right now. He is playing really tough. As he continues to play stronger, that makes our team stronger."

Friday Recap: Mississippi State Upsets #6 Georgia, Hokies Gut Out A Win, + More Results

The big upset of the day came in Starkville as the Bulldogs from Mississippi State upset the Bulldogs from Georgia 4-2.  Mississippi State took the doubles point for the 16th time this year and is now 11-0 in doubles at home.  State fell a break behind at both #1 and #3 but managed to turn both courts around and would clinch the point with a win at #1 over the #1 ranked team in the country.

Mississippi State kept the momentum going during singles play and jumped out to early break leads on 5 of 6 courts.

Mississippi State's Rishab Agarwal was 1st off the court with a 6-2, 6-2 win at #5 singles over Nick Wood in a match that was pretty lopsided the entire time.  Georgia's Wayne Montgomery would cut the deficit to 2-1 with a 7-6, 6-2 at #2 singles over Juan Cruz Estevarena.  Montgomery fell behind 5-3 in the 1st set but would break Estevarena at 4-5 and 5-6 to force the breaker then after jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the TB he took it 7-4.