No Changes at Top of ITA Rankings; Top-ranked Lauren Embree in College Spotlight; Magill Upsets Shishkina in Claremont ITF
The ITA team rankings showed no changes at No. 1 this week, with the Virginia men and North Carolina women staying at the top.
Virginia remains undefeated this year, while North Carolina's only loss was to No. 2 Florida. The men's rankings saw some shuffling of the Top 10, but the women's rankings are virtually unchanged from last year with Michigan and Miami changing positions at No. 9 and No. 10.
Men:
1. Virginia
2. USC
3. Georgia
4. UCLA
5. Tennessee
6. Pepperdine
7. Ohio State
8. Kentucky
9. Duke
10. Mississippi
Women:
1. North Carolina
2. Florida
3. Texas A&M
4. UCLA
5. Georgia
6. USC
7. Duke
8. Alabama
9. Miami
10. Michigan
The Texas College Tennis blog's ranking system has the same two teams at No. 1, but differs after that.
TCT Men:
1. Virginia
2. UCLA
3. USC
4. Ohio State
5. Pepperdine
6. Duke
7. Georgia
8. Tennessee
9. Kentucky
10. Mississippi
TCT Women:
1. North Carolina
2. Texas A&M
3. Florida
4. USC
5. UCLA
6. Georgia
7. Cal
8. Michigan
9. Duke
10. Alabama
All the men's Top 10 are the same, just in different order; the Cal women are the major variation between the two systems at the moment, with the Bears 13th in the ITA rankings. I prefer the TCT ranking system, as it seems to coincide better with my own sense of the teams' strengths, but I'm constantly revising my opinion based on the latest upsets, so that could change. Below is the ITA's list of Top 25 upsets from last week.
The first individual rankings in two weeks produced no changes, with Virginia's Alex Domijan and Florida's Lauren Embree remaining at No. 1. Domijan's teammate Jarmere Jenkins is now No. 2, followed by Mikelis Libietis of Tennessee and Peter Kobelt of Ohio State. Sabrina Santamaria of USC is No. 2 in the women's singles rankings, with Robin Anderson of UCLA and Zsofi Susanyi of Cal at 3 and 4. Santamaria and Kaitlyn Christian continue to hold the top spot in the women's doubles rankings. Duke's Henrique Cunha and Raphael Hemmeler are No. 1 in the men's doubles rankings.
All women's rankings are available here; the men's rankings can be found here.
Embree was in the USTA's most recent college spotlight earlier this month. The senior from Marco Island, Fla. describes her typical day, and reveals what her plans are after graduation.
There was a major upset in the first round of the ITF Grade 4 in Claremont, Calif., on Monday, with Maia Magill defeating No. 2 seed Maria Shishkina of Kazakhstan 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-0. Top seed Gabby Andrews also was tested in the first round, but she survived wild card Yuki Chiang 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-4. Half of the 16 girls seeds lost their first round matches.
Half of the boys seeds also went out in their first matches, with No. 3 seed Arkadijs Slobodkins of Latvian the highest seed to lose. He fell to Teague Hamilton 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Top seed Henrik Wiersholm, who has been out with an ankle injury recently, won his first round match, but defending champion Logan Smith, the No. 5 seed, fell to Spring National semifinalist Alexandru Gozun 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. Qualifier William Griffith took out No. 4 seed Hei Li of Hong Kong 6-3, 6-3 and reigning USTA 14s champion Taylor Fritz beat No. 6 seed Carter Lin 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-1.
Complete draws can be found at the tournament site at usta.com.
5 comments:
Does anybody know the formula used to determine the rankings? I find it especially difficult to believe OSU is where they are. Their only losses have been to Virginia (which was a very close match) and A & M (admittedly hurts them some) while they posted rather convincing wins against Georgia (6-1) and Pepperdine(4-0 and 4-1). Just something I have quite peculiar.
The rankings are set up to determine who the best teams are, not necessarily who the best team is or the exact order.
They also encourage the best teams to play each other.
The rankings are based on a team's best "x" number of wins. The number increases as the season goes along, and the rankings become more accurate as the season goes along. Teams with a better average of "best wins" are going to be ranked ahead of teams with fewer "best wins"
If you want the exact formula, go to the ITAtennis.com website. It's listed under the rankings section.
Could someone please explain to me why Domijan is still ranked #1 despite the fact that he keeps losing? I believe that he recently lost 2 in a row.
College Tennis, When it comes to rankings, wins are more important than losses. Losses hurt your ranking but to a much lesser degree than wins help your ranking.
Whomever is #1 (Domijan in this case) has more "good wins" than the other top ranked guys. At this point in the season, the computer looks at your best 8 singles wins up to this point. By the end of the season, the computer considers your best 15 wins.
In doubles, it's your best 7 wins currently and best 12 at the end of the season.
For team rankings, it's your best 7 wins currently and 10 best wins by the end of the season.
Also, keep in mind, that the rankings are constantly evolving. For example, Domijan previously had wins over #2 Gomez, #3 Kobelt and #4 Pecotic. With those opponents rankings changing, he now has wins over #4 Kobelt, #6 Gomez and #7 Pecotic. As a result of these changes (plus some losses), Domijan's resume will weaken somewhat in the computer's eyes in the next rankings release.
He's ranked number one because he has beaten a lot of top players including Gomez and Kobelt twice. While he does have two bad losses recently, all of the other quality wins outweigh those losses when compared to everybody else. Besides those two losses than I mentioned, he only lost one match in the fall which was to Fanselow who I believe is in the top 10. I could see Jenkins catching up to him because he will probably be playing #1 the remainder of the season.
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