December Aces; Kobelt, Oyen Top ITA Rankings, with Virginia Men and Florida Women Starting Season at No. 1
If you were busy over the holidays and want a quick review of what happened at the major junior events during that time, take a look at my December aces column for the Tennis Recruiting Network, which includes photos of the 17 different winners from the Eddie Herr, Orange Bowl, Junior Orange Bowl in Florida and Abierto Juvenil in Mexico.
The first rankings of the spring season, sponsored by Campbell's, were released today by the ITA, with Florida's Sofie Oyen and Ohio State's Peter Kobelt starting at No. 1. The Florida women and Virginia men were named the top teams heading into the dual match season.
The individual rankings are done by computer, taking into account the fall season's results, while the team rankings are done by poll. The women's team rankings pretty much follow the order of the final 2012 rankings, but Virginia has leapfrogged four-time defending champion USC in the men's rankings. The strong fall performances by Virginia freshmen Mac Styslinger, Harrison Richmond and Ryan Shane and the three Cavaliers in the top 7 of the individual rankings probably contributed to that switch.
The Top 10 men's teams:
1. Virginia
2. USC
3. UCLA
4. Ohio State
5. Duke
6. Georgia
7. Pepperdine
8. Oklahoma
9. Kentucky
10. Stanford
The Top 10 women's teams:
1. Florida
2. UCLA
3. Duke
4. USC
5. Stanford
6. Georgia
7. Cal
8. North Carolina
9. Miami
10. Alabama
Top 10 men:
1. Peter Kobelt, Ohio State
2. Matija Pecotic, Princeton
3. Alex Domijan, Virginia
4. Jarmere Jenkins, Virginia
5. Jonas Lutjen, Ole Miss
6. Sebastian Fanselow, Pepperdine
7. Mac Styslinger, Virginia
8. KU Singh, Georgia
9. Mikelis Libietis, Tennessee
10. Raymond Sarmiento, USC
Top 10 women:
1. Sofie Oyen, Florida
2. Krista Hardebeck, Stanford
3. Cristina Sanchez-Quintanar, Texas A&M
4. Julia Elbaba, Virginia
5. Lauren Embree, Florida
6. Robin Anderson, UCLA
7. Zsofi Susanyi, Cal
8. Lauren Herring, Georgia
9. Anett Schutting, Cal
10. Hanna Mar, Duke
The top 5 men's doubles teams:
1. Cunha-Hemmeler, Duke
2. Cochrane-Mies, Auburn
3. Hundal-Spir, Georgia Tech
4. Jenkins-Styslinger, Virginia
5. Wagland-Pieters, Georgia
The top 5 women's doubles teams:
1. Christian-Santamaria, USC
2. Guarachi-Macfarlane, Alabama
3. Belaya-Loomans, William and Mary
4. Issara-Guillermo, Pepperdine
5. Vierra-Epstein, Virginia
The complete women's rankings are available here. The complete men's rankings are available here.
The ITA release also gives a rundown on the top college players who did not compete during the fall, including Stanford's Nicole Gibbs, Duke's Trice Capra, Virginia's Mitchell Frank and Ohio State's Blaz Rola, all of whom are set to return to their teams this spring.
An announcement on format changes should be forthcoming from the ITA soon, with no-ad scoring in doubles and a tiebreaker if the doubles go to 7-7 (rather than 8-8) in effect for the Kickoff Weekend later this month and the Team Indoor Championships in February. This format is not expected to be used in the NCAAs this year, but schools are being encouraged to experiment with it. I will link to the ITA release as soon as it comes out, which could be as soon as Friday.
4 comments:
I wish they'd experiment with a rule that says all matches between ranked players (or at least top 25 or so ranked players) must be played to completion. In singles amd doubles. Nothing is more frustrating than watching a top matchup get a DNF. Everyone now talks about how college can prepare guys for the pros. How are the top players getting prepared if they don't learn to finish against other top players?
I wish they would just change doubles to one normal set if they are going to change the format.
I'm based out of fairfax county and get to practice with some of the UVA guys when they are home. Terrific kids and I think Ryan Shane has got real potential to be a top 5 guy in college. Apparently when some of the pros come back to Charlottesville they want to hit with him and domijan bc they both hit the ball so big. Great potential and extremely explosive game. Expecting UVA with their depth to go deep again.
Another interesting change for Men's Div I. If a player takes a medical timeout, they will now be penalized loss of point. To make matters worse, the timeout will be decreased from 5 minutes for evaluation and treatment to 3 minutes total.
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