Virginia Wins Team Indoor over Ohio State; Juniors Take Court in Pro Circuit Events
The University of Virginia won the ITA Men's Team Indoor Monday afternoon in Seattle, defeating Ohio State 4-1 in a match much closer than that score indicates. The doubles point was decided by a tiebreaker (two actually, with Ohio State needing to win both and not getting the second one), and even with a 3-0 lead, the Cavaliers had to worry with Ohio State leading in three of the remaining matches. But Treat Huey managed to close out Bryan Koniecko at No. 3 in a second set tiebreaker to clinch the match and the national title, Virginia's first in tennis. For the ITA's Casey Snedecor's story, click here. Ty Tucker provides some priceless quotes. Also, I didn't realize it, but Treat Huey has been blogging from Seattle on the Cavaliers' website. Devvarman is scheduled to take over for today's match.
There are quite a few juniors in the two Pro Circuit events taking place this week. The women are in Clearwater, Florida and Melanie Oudin is taking the court competitively for the first time since the Orange Bowl in December, using one of the "junior exempt" berths she earned for finishing in the ITF Junior Top Ten last year. Other juniors receiving wild cards are Brooke Bolender, Julia Boserup and Nicole Gibbs. Sloane Stephens, who turns 15 next month, made it through qualifying.
The men are in Brownsville, Texas this week, with wild cards Vlad Ignatic, Ryan Harrison and Austin Krajicek among the juniors in the field, along with Ricardas Berankis and qualifier Alexei Grigorov. No longer technically a junior by ITF standards, Adam El Mihdawy qualified with a win over Alex Domijan. Krajicek drew top seed Kevin Anderson and Harrison gets second seed Jamie Baker. For complete draws, see the usta.com Pro Circuit homepage.
9 comments:
Virginia clearly the best team this year - not even close to 100% and still won the tourney
Somdev - in the past week he's been to india and back then the west coast - not even close to 100%
Inglot - injured arm - still played decent doubles but definitely wasn't 100% in singles
Shabaz - still recovering from injury and getting back into the swing of college tennis...
This team is going to dominate the NCAAs take my word for it. The #1 player in the country and 2 more guys who when healthy are probably top 10-15 guys weren't 100% and they still won.
Huey was also in some sort of funk that he'll be out of by then.
UVA can't be beat this season.
I disagree.
If Georgia had a healthy luis flores, I believe they could beat Virginia. They nearly got to the finals, and had everyone been playing down a position lower, they would've easily gotten there and probably won
There were multiple teams there without key players. In addition to them, UCLA didnt have Haythem Abid who is still on their roster so I assume he is still in school. Alabama was missing Billy Mertz. Miguel Reyes Varela wasnt playing singles for Texas.
I still think the best team probably won, but I think in the end UGA might be the best team when its time to play outdoors in the sweltering Tulsa heat, especially if UVA doesnt win the dubs point. If Inglot does have an injured arm, I only see it getting worse, not better unless he takes a month off since the season just started. Remember that UVA scraped by each match, they were not dominate.
We shall see.
I think UCLA with Abid back is a major contender. Illionios looks weak down low.
fair point but here's a lot of what i'm saying:
#1somdev will be automatic 1pt for UVA every time - he's the only player in college tennis in the top 250-300 ATP quality - last year he had to compete against levine, anderson, and isner - no such competition exists this year.
#2 when shabaz is back - he'll be automatic at either #4 or #5 --- he's a top talent and if huey and inglot stay at 2/3 he'll be automatic at 4
#3 singh - if you couldn't see this weekend - is unfair at the bottom half of the line up but that's where he fits in at UVA - he might go undefeated in the dual match season...
that's 3 almost automatic points every time once healthy - then add to that the fact that they'll be favored at every other spot anyways and you need to upset UVA for the doubles point and win 3 matches for which you're the underdog (2, 3, and 6) -- i just don't see it happening ever
UVA-UGA would look like this
1. somdev/helgeson -- big adv UVA
2. inglot/flores -- toss-up with slight ad maybe to flores
3. huey/schnugg -- adv UVA
4. singh/hunt -- big adv UVA
5. shabaz/gerrapiz -- adv UVA
6. barrick/vituilli -- adv UVA
no shot
ACC Champion 2008
I completely disagree, but I guess we will find out in a few months. I wish they were playing each other in a dual match.
I would have loved to see UVA, UGA, OSU and either OMU/UCLA/USC/Tex meet up in Athens for a weekend with healthy squads and play a round robin fri,sat,sun. Then we could really see.
I think you may be overestimating the abilities of some of those players, but Virginia has a great team. Good luck to all the teams that played in the tournament. And hometown props for Washington, of course
According to Dan Magill's column in the Athens Banner Herald, Georgia was without two regulars for the ITA Indoor Nationals. #2 Luis Flores and #6 Drake Bernstein.
Since Georgia didn't win a match at #6, its obvious with Bernstein or Christian Vitulli dropping down, that they could only have been better. Helgeson has defeated Sondev earlier in the fall so why you would give Sondev the edge I am not sure, but outdoors Georgia would clearly be the choice to repeat as National champions.
I am a big Somdev fan and think that UVa is the best team. IMO, if they play well in May, they'll win the NCAAs.
However, it's no easy task.
There are certainly several teams capable of beating the Wahoos: UGA (when healthy), Ohio State, Ole Miss and UCLA-maybe even Baylor (speaking of the Bears, what happened in Seattle?).
There's also the potential wind factor in Tulsa. That could be a huge equalizer.
While Virginia has not (as we can say with most teams) played near their potential, they've shown that on a given day they are vulnerable to the upset.
IMO, a team has to win the doubles against UVa to get it done.
Austin, sure UVa has won some squeakers and in some cases been fortunate to end up on the winning side. However, how many close matches do they (or even Somdev)have to win to receive some credit or even a positive comment. How about how well they have done in the clutch? It all seems to be about how lucky they always are or something like "If this had (or had not) happened . . . then the other team would have won."
SEC Tennis, if you are not sure why Somdev should be favored over Helgeson, I'm not sure how closely you have followed college tennis. You might have missed the Somdev's 6-1, 6-2 win over Travis in Athens or either of the Isner matches.
The only college guys who can consistently match Somdev's level are currently in the ATP top 200: Isner, Levine and Anderson. A year from now Somdev should be up there as well.
Bruges beat Isner in Tulsa last season (2006), but no one doubted who was the better player.
It's very very difficult to go through the entire season undefeated. I wouldn't hold that one loss against Somdev.
Dominic Inglot beat Travis in the fall, and even holds a 2-1 record against him. However, Travis would still likely be the favorite the next time they match up.
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