Quigley Upsets Top Seed Nedovyesov in Opening Round of D'Novo All-American

©Colette Lewis--
Tulsa OK--

Although it didn't rival the deluge outside, there was a steady stream of upsets in the opening round Thursday at the ITA D'Novo All-American Championships on the campus of the University of Tulsa. The biggest one, Kentucky's Eric Quigley's 7-5, 6-1 victory over top seed and 2009 ITA Player of the Year Oleksandr Nedovyesov of Oklahoma State, came early and the weather may have played a role.

"I do like indoors, and it definitely helped my serve," said the Wildcat sophomore. "Last time we played it was indoors and he was victorious, but it didn't hurt me today, that's for sure."

With his movement, serve and forehand meshing perfectly, Quigley made very few errors, even though he was going for big shots. He held serve easily, which kept the pressure on Nedovyesov. Once he fell behind 3-0 in the second set, the senior from Ukraine made Quigley's task easier by regularly donating points.

Quigley also believed he had an advantage in having come through qualifying.

"I don't know if he's played any college tournaments before this season, but I played a tournament last weekend, and then three matches going into this one definitely helped. It helped a lot."

Admitting that it was the best win of his career, and not one he expected, Quigley also conceded that he had found that territory described as "the zone."

"It was everything. It was like I was hitting with my eyes closed, but they were all going in."


Also joining Nedovyesov on the sidelines was Nate Schnugg of Georgia, the No. 4 seed, who also fell to a sophomore qualifier, Brennan Boyajian of North Carolina. Boyajian failed to serve out the first set when up 5-4, but did capture the tiebreaker 7-6(3). Schnugg was serving for the second set, but he couldn't overcome Boyajian's speed and anticipation during those last four games, dropping the second tiebreaker 7-6(5).

In addition to Nedovyesov and Schnugg, five other seeds lost their opening matches. Guillermo Gomez of Georgia Tech, the No. 5 seed, lost to qualifier Neal Skupski of LSU; No. 6 seed Dimitar Kutrovsky of Texas was beaten by Andrei Daescu of Oklahoma; No. 8 seed Jean Yves Aubone of Florida State lost to Steve Johnson of Southern California; No. 11 seed Austen Childs of Louisville fell to qualifier Drew Courtney of Virginia and No. 16 seed Dean Jackson of San Diego was defeated by freshman qualifier Henrique Cunha of Duke.

No. 9 seed Sanam Singh of Virginia saved two match points with Austin Krajicek serving at 5-4 in the third set, and went on to scrape out a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) victory. No. 3 seed and 2007 All-American finalist Rob Farah of Southern California survived a tough battle with qualifier Alex Stamchev of Auburn 6-2, 6-7, 6-1 while No. 2 seed JP Smith had a long wait for a short evening of work, when qualifier Matt Kecki of USC retired down 6-1, 3-0 in the night's last match.

For complete results, see the ITF tournament page, which also has all the doubles results from this morning's first round.

Nedovyesov wasn't the only top seed to lose on Thursday. Maria Mosolova of Northwestern, the top seed at the Riviera All-American, was defeated by wild card Caitlyn Whoriskey of Tennessee 6-1, 6-3. Freshman qualifiers Danielle Lao of USC and Allie Will and Lauren Embree of Florida advanced to the second round. For complete results, see the ITA tournament page.

Tags: college tennis, Eric Quigley, D'Novo All-American Championships, Colette Lewis