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Friday, February 20, 2015

D III Men's Team Indoor Underway; Update on D I Formats for Conference Play; Sanford, Schaefer in Grade 2 Final in Chile

Just four days after the completion of the Division I Men's Team Indoor in Chicago, the ITA Division III Men's Indoor gets underway with eight teams traveling to St. Peter Minnesota, where Gustavus Adolphus is the tournament's host.  Two matches have been completed today, with No. 2 seed and defending champion Washington St. Louis just getting by No. 7 Kenyon 5-4, and No. 3 Emory defeating No. 6 Carnegie Mellon by the same score. The top seed is Trinity, who is playing the eighth-seeded hosts this evening, with No. 5 Case Western against No. 4 Johns Hopkins in the other night match.

The bloggers at Division3Tennis.com have written a preview for the Tennis Recruiting Network, available here.  If you want even more inside information on what to look for in Minnesota, check out their blog.

The Men's Team Indoor All-tournament team was announced by the ITA, with Oklahoma's Alex Ghilea the Most Outstanding Player. The complete team can be found here.  And I want to thank Jonathan Kelley again for his outstanding coverage of that tournament for this site. It's great to have a fresh set of eyes on the college tennis beat, and I know he enhanced my enjoyment of the tournament.

With last week's decision by the NCAA championship cabinet to table the ITA format approved and put forth by the NCAA Division I tennis committee, information on the format being played by which genders and which conferences has been hard to come by.  The ITA ruled that all remaining nonconference matches would be played in the no-ad, one set to 6 in doubles format, but if the two coaches agree otherwise, they can play any format they want.  Apparently Georgia Tech(ACC) and Georgia(SEC) have agreed to play the 2014 NCAA format (8 game pro set in doubles, regular scoring) for their match Saturday, according to this preview, but the North Carolina men (ACC) are playing in Texas(Big 12) tonight and they appear to be playing the ITA format, with the doubles point decided in six-game sets.

From what I understand, these major conferences/genders are playing ITA format for the rest of the season, including their conference tournaments, switching to NCAA format only when the NCAAs begin.

SEC Men
Big 12 Men
Pac 12 Men
Big 12 Women

Unless I have misunderstood, teams in these conferences will play the NCAA format for the remainder of the year. If anyone has information otherwise, please let me know in the comments.

SEC Women
Big 10 Women
Big 10 Men
ACC Men
ACC Women
Pac 12 Women

Schaefer and Sewing also won the Eddie Herr 16s doubles title last year
At the ITF Grade 2 in Chile, Alexandra Sanford, the No. 2 seed, will take on No. 9 seed Dominique Schaefer of Peru in the final.  Sanford defeated Gabby Pollner(7)  6-1, 6-4 and Schaefer downed No. 8 seed Sofia Sewing 6-4, 06, 7-6(4).   Schaefer and Sewing, the No. 3 seeds, teamed to defeat top seeds Pollner and Sanford in the doubles final 6-2, 4-6, 10-2.

Jack Barber and Liam Caruana won the doubles title, with the No. 3 seeds defeating top seeds Marcelo Barrios Vera of Chile and Juan Rosas of Peru 7-6(5), 7-5.  No. 2 seed Barrios Vera and Geronimo Espin Busleiman of Argentina, the No. 13 seed, will meet in the boys singles final Saturday.

13 comments:

Joe said...

Jared Hiltzik had a great tweet today about no-add scoring. He basically said regular scoring is boring and the fans hate it. Sounds like not all players are convinced the current format will doom college tennis.

Former D1 Player said...

"Great" tweet?! More like a stupid tweet. The vast majority of the players hate no-ad and for good reason. All it does is dramatically increase the element of chance/luck to decide a match, which reduces the element of skill. Got to love those no-ad points where one player gets a let cord ace and breaks serve to give him the set. This is "Casino Tennis" at its finest. If you like it so much then move to Vegas.

And, under the argument that it's more "exciting" them why don't we decide every game by one no-ad point, that would be even more "exciting"...and more stupid.

Lil MO Fan said...

GET UP DY!! Finals of Del Ray! Defeats Tomic today..

russ said...

Former D1 player...
I did not hear one player complain about no-ad in Chicago. I heard many fans say it's cool. Just in, just out, net cords during rallies have decided many matches. Embrace big point pressure, I say.

Randy said...

There is a reason why players aren't speaking up anymore. They have had their scoring changed 4 times in 2 1/2 years. 10,0000 of them started a facebook page and the system immediately showed that it didn't want to hear them. Many of them don't know where their coaches stand on the issue. How is a player supposed to speak up against something they don't like when their coaches are trying to bias them to like it? These kids are splitting 4.5 scholarships and are waiting each year for the next 23 year old freshman who played 17 ATP tournaments the year before to come and take their spot.

40 year old freshman said...

Can we retire the 23 year old freshman comments? A week ago someone referred to 22 year old freshman. NCAA legislation was passed years ago to prevent this from happening. If I am wrong, please list the 22-23 year old freshmen currently playing. Or just continue to post false information.

rondo snead said...

gal hakak 22 last year as a freshman for Washington huskies!

Former D1 who doesn't like no-ad said...

Gal Hakak is from Israel where most citizens are required to join the military after high school

ClarkC said...

Gal Hakak committed to Northwestern in high school, then was drafted and served three years in the military. The NCAA has lots of waivers and exceptions for special cases. He was not playing a Futures every week, you can be sure, and that would figure into his eligibility ruling. A special case such as this one has nothing to do with misleading generalizations about every freshman in the country having to compete with 22-year-old foreign freshmen who have played 17 ATP events.

russ said...

Not only hasn't he been playing futures every week, as Clark writes, but he hasn't played one since 2011. He's never even won a main draw match and earned a point. So if he's the poster boy for the big bad foreigners who are laying waste to American tennis and destroying a young American's dreams of going to college then heading out on the pro circuit to rake in the dough, American tennis is truly in sad shape.

What this entire issue of foreigners in college tennis is about, in my opinion, is money, not tennis. College is too damn expensive and after years of shelling out gobs of money, many parents not only feel that they're entitled to some sort of scholarship, but robbed of all the money they did spend on junior tennis. However, the exorbitant cost of college is another issue altogether and one that needs to be addressed on a much broader scale than putting quotas on foreigners playing tennis in America.

Stephen said...

Mikael Torpegaard, freshman for Ohio State, will turn 21 on May 8th.

His teammate, Ralf Steinbach, who is a redshirt sophomore, will turn 23 on May 24.

Those are not 22-year-old freshmen, but still older and more-experienced than most of their American counterparts.

confused and concerned said...

tomas pitra of the wisconsin badgers mens tennis team turned 22 on feb 14,2015. he is listed as a freshman. http://www.itftennis.com/juniors/players/player/profile.aspx?PlayerID=100128370

http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/m-tennis/mtt/tomas_pitra_861642.html

What is the rule of eligibility for mens tennis div 1?

Shawn said...

Anyone out there want to comment on the Freshman who is 22 years old....
Tomas Pitra
Class: Freshman
Hometown: Prague, Czech Republic
High School: Gymnazium Altis