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.

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.

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.

Cal Stuns TCU, UNC Takes Out OU, Texas Hooks Stanford, Bucks Blank Hokies

Some days things go your way and some days they don't - for TCU, Oklahoma, and Stanford it was the latter while Cal, North Carolina, and Texas walked away with big smiles on its faces.

Cal got punched in the gut when it couldn't participate in the Kick-Off Weekend due to weather but they made up for it this weekend in spades with wins over #26 Texas and #2 TCU.

Both Cal and TCU played physical matches on Saturday with each getting pushed by its opponents but while Cal bounced back TCU wasn't able to keep up the Bears.

TCU pulled out the doubles point for the second day in a row with wins at #2 and #3 but Cal got humming in singles and took opening sets at #2, #3, #4, and #6.

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?

ITA Kick-Off Weekend Recap, On Wisconsin, Pac-12/SEC Challenge, TV Matches

It's back to regular season action this week but if you missed out on last weekend's ITA Kick-Off you can get caught up with my recap that I did for Tennis Recruiting.Net. There were lots of first-time qualifiers for the National Team Indoors and a lot of good stories over the weekend.

The best story so far this week is what's going on up in Madison, Wisconsin. In the off-season the Badgers hired Danny Westerman (UW '02) to replaced the departed Greg Van Emburgh and so far he has Wisconsin off a top a 2-0 start after upsetting #34 Princeton 4-3 on Wednesday night.