Michigan Men Surprise Duke; Northwestern Women Avenge Loss to UNC; Blue Gray Finals Set; Dallas Challenger Qualifying Results
Two Big Ten teams avenged earlier losses to ACC opponents today, with the Michigan men surprising No. 6 Duke 4-3, and the No. 18 Northwestern women taking a 4-2 decision from third ranked North Carolina.
Michigan had lost to Duke 7-0 during the ITA Kickoff weekend in Durham, and with the loss of the doubles point today, it didn't look as if the Wolverines were likely to reverse that outcome. But without Duke's top player, Henrique Cunha in the singles lineup (he did play doubles, clinching the point at No. 1 in a tiebreaker, where he suffered an injury according to the Duke website) and a different look to their own lineup, Michigan was able to win four of six singles matches. Jason Jung beat Christopher Mengel 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 at No. 2 singles to give Michigan the victory. Evan King, Barrett Franks and Justin Rossi earned the other three singles wins for the Wolverines. For more on the match, see mgoblue.com.
In Evanston, the Northwestern women reversed last week's 4-3 loss to the Tar Heels in the quarterfinals of the Team Indoor, with both teams mixing up their lineups from just a week ago. Northwestern took the doubles point, and in singles, Kate Turvy, Belinda Niu and clincher Stacey Lee posted victories for the Wildcats. For details on the win, see nusports.com.
In another women's match between top 20 teams, No. 20 Florida State beat No. 15 Georgia Tech 5-2 in an ACC match in Atlanta. For more on that see, seminoles.com.
At the Blue Gray Tennis Classic in Montgomery, the top two women's seeds--No. 1 Virginia and No. 2 Notre Dame--advanced to Sunday's final, but there was a surprise this evening in the men's draw, with No. 3 seed Auburn ousting top seed Texas Tech 4-3. Auburn's Tim Puetz beat Gonzalo Escobar of Texas Tech at the No. 1 spot 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 to put his team in the final against No. 2 seed Pepperdine. For complete results, see the tournament website.
The qualifying for the $50,000 Dallas Challenger got underway today, and there were a surprising number of byes. Perhaps it's the two Futures in Texas, with the Brownsville tournament just finishing and the Harlingen tournament just beginning, as well as a Futures in Canada next week, but I would have expected a better qualifying field. Virginia's Alex Domijan and Jarmere Jenkins have reached the final round of qualifying (with one bye and one win today). Domijan will face No. 2 seed Gastao Elias of Portugal in a rematch of the 2007 Eddie Herr Boys 18s final for a place in the main draw. Jenkins plays top seed Raven Klaasen of South Africa. Juniors Mitchell Krueger and Dane Webb fell in second round matches today.
Jack Sock, Denis Kudla and Bernard Tomic have received main draw wild cards. For the tournament notes, as well as qualifying results and both draws, see the Pro Circuit page at usta.com.
6 comments:
#2 Reid Carleton was also extremely sick throughout the week so although Michigan won, this certainly should not be a "surprise", especially since Duke didn't have their top 2 players anywhere near healthy.
Common, give credit where credit is due ... Go Michigan !
A lot of peple believe that Michigan just got lucky this time. A rematch should settle fan's doubts and all players should be injury-free when that happens! www.tennisround.com
Sick or not sick, still great effort on both teams part . There should be a significant change in next week's rankings . Which makes it interesting.
to asterik and jobaholic
agree w. goblue---give credit to Michigan. If the Duke coach did not play an injured chuna why would he have played a sick Carleton. Dont think it was a fluke but more indicative of the lack of depth in the Duke line-up. Tennessee had not trouble getting to the ITA indoor finals w/out Sandgrens who was sick in Seattle.
Tennessee had their #4 player out, not their #1 and a sick #2. That's a big difference and they probably would not have gotten to the finals without their top 2.
I agree, credit to Michigan, they won. Barely, 4-3.
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