No. 1 Virginia Survives Scare from Wake Forest, Advances to Sweet 16; No. 36 Tulsa Defeats No. 13 Texas to Earn Palo Alto Trip
It's been a busy and unfortunately rainy day for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Division I championships. The final 16 men's teams, who will make the trip to Palo Alto next week, were expected to be decided today, but rain in Gainesville pushed back the start time of the Florida match with Miami past 9 p.m., so it could very well finish Sunday morning.
As you would expect in the second round, there were several extremely close matches, four of which were decided by the last match on. In Norman, Oklahoma, No. 36 Tulsa, a No. 3 regional seed, had already completed one upset by beating No. 20 Oklahoma 4-2 on Friday. Despite that very difficult win, the Golden Hurricanes still had enough left to overcome No. 13 Texas, with Grant Ive defeating Vasko Mladenov 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-3 to complete the 4-3 upset and send Tulsa to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program's history. Tulsa will meet No. 4 Ohio State, who beat Notre Dame 4-0.
Another 4-3 victory came in Lexington, where No. 10 Kentucky beat No. 24 Louisville when Wildcat Alex Musialek posted a 5-7, 7-5, 6-0 win over Viktor Maksimcuk at No. 2 singles to send Kentucky on to the Sweet 16, where they will meet the winner of the Florida - Miami match.
The biggest surprise of the day however, was in Virginia's match with No. 33 Wake Forest. The top-ranked Cavaliers led 3-0 with the doubles point and wins by Alex Domijan and Sanam Singh, but they had lost the first set at No. 1 and No. 4 singles. At one stage, after Wake's Adam Lee took a big lead in the third set against Drew Courtney at No. 5, Michael Shabaz was down 4-2 to Jonathan Wolff at No. 1, Jarmere Jenkins was in a tiebreaker at No. 4 with David Hopkins, which he had to win to extend the match, and Justin Shane was just starting his third set, having lost the second, with Amogh Prabhakar at No. 6. Lee got Wake its point, but Jenkins won the tiebreaker and Shabaz won five of the next six games to close out the win for Virginia.
Next up for the Cavaliers will be No. 17 Illinois, who beat No. 16 seed North Carolina 4-1 today in Champaign. Other round of 16 matchups are No. 12 Duke vs. No. 6 Georgia, No. 2 Southern California vs. No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 8 Stanford vs. No. 9 Texas A&M, No. 3 Tennessee vs. No. 15 Cal, who beat No. 38 Fresno State 4-3, and No. 5 Baylor vs. No. 12 UCLA. In a match just completed, Bruin Holden Seguso won a third set tiebreaker over Mississippi's Johan Backstrom at No. 5 to give UCLA a 4-3 victory. Ole Miss led 3-1 with all three remaining matches late in their third sets.
For complete bracket, see ncaa.com.
Three of the women's second round matches were played today with No. 14 Northwestern, No. 4 North Carolina and No. 5 Miami advancing to Palo Alto. Northwestern shut out No. 20 Notre Dame, despite missing Belinda Niu from their lineup, while North Carolina beat No. 28 Washington 4-1 and Miami blanked No. 23 Texas.
In women's first round action today, the only lower seed to advance was SMU. Although ranked 32, SMU was given a 33-48 seeding, but they beat Texas A&M, ranked No. 31 and seeded 17-32, 4-3 in College Station. One of the most exciting matches of the first round came in Atlanta, where No. 17 Arizona State beat No. 40 Ole Miss 4-3, with Jacqueline Cako clinching it for the Sun Devils at No. 2 singles. Cako beat Connor Vogel 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
The women's bracket is here.
On Sunday, the remaining 13 teams competing in Palo Alto will be decided.
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Recapping all mens regionals:
Virginia Regional: UVA & Wake both cruised in opening matches.
Even though UVA led 3-0, Wake was either tied or ahead in the overall match at that point. Shabaz stepped it up and closed it out before it could get really nerve-racking. I was not impressed with UVA this weekend.
USC Regional: USC rolled opening round. San Diego surprisingly just crushed BYU, but yesterday USC rolled all over the Toreros, not a very exciting weekend here.
Tennessee Regional: UT was not impressive against Radford, they were struggling in each of the three matches that didnt finish. VTech had a solid, but close win over Vandy. If Lipman had played Vandy may have won. Yesterday UT rolled right past the Hokies.
Ohio State Regional: OSU rolled all weekend. Notre Dame barely squeezed past ETSU. Incredibly close match. In the decider ND was able to break late for the 7-5 win.
Baylor Regional: Baylor didnt exactly roll in the first round, they were tight in the two matches that didnt finish. TTech and Rice played a very odd match. Tech rolled in doubles, then in five of the six singles matches the winner lost only 7 & 8 games total in each set, avg. of 1 & 2 approx. The clincher was the only close match all day, with Tech winning it 6-3. I think they broke to go up 4-3, then again to win the match, but im not positive. Baylor did a poor job of updating. Yesterday Baylor won a great doubles point, getting the clincher in a tiebreaker. Three singles matches were blowouts, giving the Bears a 3-1 lead, but the others were all close, easily could have been 4-3 final, but Bears rolled in the third set of the clincher.
Georgia Regional: UGA rolled in both matches. UNC-Wilmington put up a good fight against Auburn in first round, but Tigers won the clutch points.
Stanford Regional: Stanford rolled in first round, UDub had a challenge from Cal-Poly, but won comfortably. Second round Stanford won pretty easy against Huskies. They had big leads in remaining matches as well.
Florida Regional: Gators completely rolled in both matches. Miami had nice comeback against Nebraska in a match that wasnt all that exciting. Gators took the second round match 4-0, but the remaining matches were all very close.
Texas A&M Regional: LSU & Indiana played great match. Very exciting doubles, in the decider both had match points in, with IU finally taking it 11-9. In singles only two matches were really close. LSU came back from down 2-6 in the first set breaker to win the set at #5, lost the second, then won the final few games to take the third set and the match. While that match was winding down Skupski had a great win in a third set breaker over Langer 7-4. Second round A&M won 4-0, the other matches were fairly close with each team about to win a match.
Kentucky Regional: UK & UL both rolled in first round. In second round UK, after holding off break pts at 4-5 broke to go up 6-5, then at 7-6 held off two break points and took dubs. Singles were all close. UK started up in most all matches, then UL made big comeback. UK took #4 & 5 fairly easily, while UL grabbed #3 after the rain delay. Carter won at #6 after being up 7-5,5-1, 0-40 on Jombys serve when rain delay hit. Nine match points later he won the set 6-4. Childs broke Quigley at 4-4 in third and served it out. Deciding match Matsimuck led 7-5,4-3 up a break. He got broken there, then again at 5-6, third set was rout. He was down 0-5 when Childs tied it at 3-3.
Duke Regional: Duke rolled first round both rounds. Maryland beat Michigan surprisingly. Wolverines end season as most dissapointing team in country, followed closely by Louisville.
UCLA Regional: UCLA and Ole Miss both won pretty easily opening round. Rebels had a little fight from UCI, but result was never in doubt. Ole Miss rolled the Bruins in doubles, took a 3-1 lead when things got interesting. Inbar had lead all of third set to make it 3-2 Rebs, but Theimann served for match at 5-4 against Kosakowski, then proceeded to lose three straight games to end it. Seguso led 5-3 in the third, had several match points serving for it at 5-4, eventually won it in a tiebreaker which he led virtually the whole way. Seguso is a kid who played #2 on a much better UCLA team as a freshman. Since then has only regressed, I dont know what happened, but he now is battling at #5, great win for him though. This is the worst UCLA team I have seen in a long time though. I think the reign of the quarterfinals or better comes to an end next week.
Oklahoma Regional: Texas rolled first round. Tulsa won a very close doubles point against Oklahoma, then in singles OU grabbed two quick ones to take a 2-1 lead, but Tulsa quickly made it 2-2, then after going up 3-2, Ive won 7-5 in the third in the clincher. I didnt get to follow the end of this one, but OU led 4-3 in the third of the match that didnt finish. Yesterday Tulsa won 9-7 again in the doubles clincher, three singles matches were blowouts to give Tulsa a 3-1 lead, but Whitehead rolled in the third to cut it to 3-2 Tulsa, but both the remaining matches ended at 6-3 in third, each team getting a win, meaning the Golden Hurricane are onto Palo Alto.
California Regional: Cal rolled first round. Minnesota rolled Fresno in doubles, but then Fresno took a 2-1 lead after claiming two singles matches. They each then quickly won a singles match to make it 3-2 Fresno, but Minnesota won 6-4 in the third at #1, which moved the deciding to #6 where Fresno won all the clutch points to win 7-5 in the third and take the match 4-3. Yesterday Fresno won a very close doubles point, getting the clincher at 9-7 while Cal led 7-5 in the other match. After Cal won 1&1 to make it 1-1, all five other matches in singles went to three sets. Cal won at #4 6-3 in the third, then at #1 I believe Fresno served for it at 5-4 before Cal reeled off the final three games to take it 7-5 and go ahead 3-1 overall. Fresno immeidately responsed by winning at #2, then won in a tiebreaker at #5, once again leaving Ayoun on the deciding court. This time, however, he couldnt get it done, losing the final few games and the match 6-4.
Georgia Tech Regional: GTech rolled first round. State won the doubles, then quickly took two singles matches to go up 3-0 on Florida State. They had a nice come from behind win at #6 at 6-4 in the third to seal the match. Although the final score was 4-0, the other three matches were at 1-1, 6-6 and 0-0 in the third. Yesterday Tech cruised in doubles over State, the Bulldogs then somehow won the first match when Coupland won 1-6,6-3,6-3 after most the other matches were either early or midway through their second sets. Tech then easily finished off two singles matches to go up 3-1 before Gomez won at #1 in a second set tiebreaker to seal it. The other two matches were at were in States favor as Cant was up a set and 3-1 and Chaudry had just won the second set. So this match could have gone either way if Gomez didnt close it out at #1.
Illinois Regional: UNC cruised in first round. Illinois won a tough doubles point over Drake at 9-7 in the deciding match. Then in singles won all three matches to win 4-0, but the decider was in a tiebreaker with two of the other matches close in third sets and the Illini up big in the other match. Yesterday Illinois won the key point, doubles, in a tiebreaker to go up 1-0. Nevolo blasted Hernandez, a match UNC had to have, to go up 2-0. Ahari won a very lopsided three match before Souza and Hamui won to clinch it. The remaining matches though were with Illinois up 5-4 in the third and UNC up 3-2, clearly the doubles point was the difference.
Had to break this into three parts.
All in all there were some VERY good second round matches. More than I can remember from recent years.
18 of the top 20 singles players are still alive in the team tournament. Only Tim Puetz and Austen Childs failed to make it. I would look for them to do some damage in the individual tournaments. Especially Childs being the runner-up last year.
Also, I have to give HUGE thank you to Lateralsports.com for having links to every regionals live stats. That was AWESOME!!! For huge college tennis nerds like me it was heaven.
Cant wait for Thursday!
Not surprised that Texas had a tight one then lost to Tulsa because their bottom of the line-up is not stronger than other top 15 to 20 teams and there #1 is a probably not as strong as well. My question is what will happen with Texas next year as they are losing both there #1 and #2 and don’t have any top recruits to fill that gap, which is surprising, unless Center pulls a rabbit out of the hat with a last minute international recruit. What is surprising is the tight match with UVA and Wake Forest though. Anyone know why tripper Carlton is not in the line-up. Injured again?
The GT regional recap is slightly off: Gomez won in straight sets at #1. It was Dean O'Brien that clinched in a 2nd set tiebreaker at #6. Dean also clinched the match with Georgia earlier this year.
Yes, Tripper Carleton was injured and missing for Wake Forest. Wake has good talent and has given Virginia some tough battles in recent years without managing to win any of them. I believe that Tennessee only beat Wake Forest 4-3 last year in the NCAAs, then went on to the national finals. Keep in mind that Drew Courtney was injured at about 6-1, 4-4 or 4-3 and was reduced to walking around (literally; I do not mean running slowly, I mean walking around the court) for the rest of the match, swinging hard to try to end points quickly. He won only one game after the injury. Otherwise, it was a 4-0 win with matches at 1/4/6 never having to play their third sets. Also, Virginia was up a break in the third set of the two unfinished matches, so this one was headed for 6-1 with the only loss being caused by an injury. It was a nailbiter, but the better team won without having a good day on the courts.
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