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Monday, April 21, 2008

Inside Junior Tennis Podcast; Conference Championships

Kevin McClure and I had a lot to talk about in this Inside Junior Tennis podcast. In addition to the ISC and Easter Bowl, we discussed Patrick McEnroe's recent appointment as GM of Elite Player Development, Ryan Harrison, the Tennis Recruiting Network's Top Ten seniors and more. I've appreciated hearing comments from those of you who listen to the podcast, and I know Kevin does too. If you have a moment to write a brief review, on iTunes, we'd welcome it.

It was a busy and dramatic weekend of college tennis. John supplies his account of the Stanford women's victory over Cal, which gave the Cardinal a share of the Pac-10 crown with UCLA.

The real drama came in the SEC and ACC women's conference championships, however, which both came down to the third set in the final match with the score tied at 3-3. Georgia won its second straight SEC conference tournament when sophomore Naoko Ueshima outlasted Florida freshman Marrit Boonstra 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-4 at No. 4 singles, avenging the Bulldogs' 5-2 loss to the Gators last month. Georgiadogs.com has the complete story here.

Ole Miss won the men's SEC title, downing Florida 4-1. The details are here.

The Virginia men took all the suspense out of their ACC tournament title, taking down surprise finalist Miami 4-0.

But the women's final more than made up for that, when it was decided in a third set tiebreaker at No. 3 singles between Duke freshman Reka Zsilinszka and Clemson senior Carol Salge. Salge prevailed 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(6) to give the No. 4 seeded Tigers, who had upset No. 1 seed Georgia Tech in the semifinals Saturday, their tenth straight win heading into the NCAAs. For more, click here.

The Big Ten and Big-12 will conduct their conference tournaments this coming weekend. The Conference USA men's and women's titles both went to Tulsa, who is hosting the NCAAs next month.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im going with an Ohio State and Texas cruise to the titles in their respective conferences. Now if only the Pac10 would get rid of their individual tournament, which I think is just dumb.

Anonymous said...

I'd say OSU and UT are certainly favorites but the Illini could make a play at it and so could Baylor/TT --- As a Virginia fan I'd like to see Texas win so they might supplant UGA at #5 (and put Georgia on the other side of the draw now that it looks like UCLA will be over there too)...

Either way, I don't see anybody beating us - we're automatic at #1 and #6, Huey is better than any #3 in the country and just as good as any #2 (and again, significantly better than almost all)... Singh is a buzzsaw at #4 and our doubles is really clicking these days with the new line-up. Add to that that every other spot is at least 50/50 or better and I just don't see anybody keeping us from getting to 4 points.

Colette Lewis said...

I've gotten some interesting comments lately about who will win the NCAAs, but they were anonymous, so not published.
As a reminder, click the Name/URL button, enter a name (URL not required) of your choosing to ensure your comment is posted.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, this UVa team isn't as dominant as say last year's UGA team (where it was tough to see where you could win any points), but against this UVa team, it's really tough to find where you're going to get the 4 points to beat them. Tough to win the doubles point with automatic #1, ranked #3 and a #2 that has lost once. You're down 1-0 at that point, you lose at #1 and #6, and then you have to run the table against the rest of their team, all of whom are good. It really helps to have that dominant #1 player and dominant #1 doubles team.

Anonymous said...

They are good, but not overly impressive. I see several teams that have the ability to beat them. I still think they are the favorite, but multiple teams have the capability to send them home early. Similar to the 2005 Baylor team, they seemed unbeatable.

Anonymous said...

Similar to Somdev himself - I was at the ACC tournament and watching him play is not overly impressive if you're not looking for the details. Watch his footwork, his strokes, and his game management though. It's easy to watch Somdev play and beat your teams #1 and just say "Vallverdu just had a bad day" or whoever. What you don't see so easily is they had a bad day because of what Somdev was doing. He's a counter-puncher.

Similarly, UVA is not overly impressive this year, but where are your 4 points going to come from? I just don't see anyone beating them. Somebody will have to upset Somdev (IMO) in order to do it and I just don't see him losing. His one loss of the year (to a guy he CRUSHED last year - Helgeson) was at a time when one of my UVA friends tells me he was fiddling with his racquet (though Somdev would never tell you that).

It's a scary time to be a UNC tennis fan, I just don't know the next time we'll be able to win the ACC.