Bass Surprises Isner in Second Round; Moneke Eliminates Poerschke
Only two seeds remain in the men's draw after the second round of men's singles at the ITA Individual Indoor on Friday afternoon, and no. 2 John Isner and no. 4 Lars Poerschke aren't among them.
Notre Dame's Stephen Bass and Ohio State's Steven Moneke scored the upsets, and neither needed three sets. Bass defeated the 6-foot-9 senior from Georgia 6-4, 7-6 (6), while Moneke took out Baylor's lone representative in the men's draw 6-2, 7-5.
Isner had an opportunity to send the match to a third set; actually he had six opportunities, as that was the number of set points he had in the second set. With Bass serving at 5-6, Isner was one point away from evening the match. In the tiebreak, Isner built a 6-3 lead using one mini-break, two aces and three service winners, but doublefaulted at 6-5 and didn't win another point. Never one to keep his frustrations hidden, Isner was berating himself throughout the match and after it was over, a full water bottle became the object of his ire. It wasn't a good tournament for Georgia, with no. 6 seed Luis Flores falling in the first round and no. 7 Travis Helgeson losing to Harel Srugo of Old Dominion 6-3, 6-2 in the second round. 
Moneke, a sophomore from Germany, had 30 or 40 Buckeye supporters cheering him on and he needed them; After a relatively easy first set for Moneke, Poerschke dug in, and every game was a battle from the first point. Next for Moneke on Friday evening will be 8th seed Erling Tveit of Ole Miss, who defeated Andre Begemann of Pepperdine 6-4, 7-6 (8). Bass will face Boise State's Luke Shields, a 6-2, 6-4 winner over Bojan Szumanski of Texas Tech.
No. 1 seed Ben Kohlloeffel of UCLA, a 6-2, 6-4 winner over Ohio State freshman Justin Kronauge, will meet Srugo. In the other quarterfinal Friday afternoon, Todd Paul of Wake Forest, who defeated Illinois' Ryan Rowe 6-4, 6-4, meets Ivan Puchkarov of Oklahoma State. Puchkarov eliminated small college champion Mislav Hizak of Embry-Riddle 6-4, 6-3.
There were no upsets in the women's division in Friday morning's second round, as the six remaining seeds advanced. The two giant killers of Thursday, Kirsten Flower of Georgia Tech and University of North Carolina's Jeanna Long, both continued their excellent play. Flower beat University of South Florida's Shadisha Robinson 6-3, 6-1 and Long outlasted LSU's Megan Falcon 7-6 (1), 2-1 ret.
The only seeded women's doubles team remaining after Friday's quarterfinals is no. 4 William & Mary's Megan Moulton-Levy and Katarina Zoric. On the men's side, the only unseeded team still alive is LSU's James Cluskey and Ken Skupski, who defeated the fourth seeds Markus Dickhardt and Christian Groh of San Diego State 9-7.
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