Part II of NCAA Roundtable; My Guest Appearance on Cracked Racquets Podcast; Women's D-I Regionals Finals Set; Quinn and Stoiana Sweep Coral Gables J4 Titles; Brengle and Liu Reach Charleston $100K Semifinals

Part two of the Tennis Recruiting Network's annual NCAA Division I Roundtable was published today, with the panelists naming their dark horses and predicting their champions. In addition to my regular participation in that forum, I also spoke this morning with Alex Gruskin of Cracked Racquets for his Mini-Break podcast. We started with a few minutes about the current junior tennis landscape, then got down to our thoughts on the women's NCAA tournament, with a brief foray into the men's event at the end. Our biggest back-and-forth came in talking about No. 3 seed Georgia, who I believe is one of the three favorites, while he is not as enthusiastic about the Bulldogs' prospects.

All the women's regional finals are set, with all of the Top 16 seeds advancing to the second round by 4-0 scores. There were a few upsets however in the first round matches between No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the regionals, and that's where the close matches were, with 35th-ranked USC defeating No. 22 Oklahoma 4-3, No. 36 Iowa State defeating No. 24 South Carolina 4-2 and, in the day's biggest upset, unranked North Florida taking out No. 25 Mississippi 4-3 for the program's first NCAA tournament win.

Only six men's regionals began play today, with the day starting with the unfortunate news that Florida Gulf Coast, who was taking the place of Liberty due to Liberty's disqualification due to Covid protocols, also had a possible test result among it's traveling party, giving North Carolina State a walkover. 

In the day's most anticipated match, Arizona defeated Michigan 4-3 to reach the second round for the third time in program history, with Gustaf Strom defeating Andrew Fenty 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 at line 1 to secure the win for the Wildcats. They will face No. 14 Kentucky, who came back from dropping the doubles point to Cleveland State to post a 4-1 win, in Saturday's regional final. The other five men's seeds to advance to regional finals are No. 16 Illinois, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 12 Southern California, No. 13 South Carolina and No. 10 Wake Forest.  Ohio State, who dropped four first sets in singles against VCU before claiming a 4-1 victory, will play Wake Forest in Saturday's marquee men's match. 

The updated women's draw is here; the men's draw is here. See College Tennis Today for links to live streaming and live scoring for Saturday's matches.

In other college news, Baylor has removed the interim tag from Michael Woodson, the men's associate coach who took over the Bears when head coach Brian Boland resigned last summer. 

Unseeded Mary Stoiana and No. 1 seed Ethan Quinn swept the titles today at the ITF J4 in Coral Gables Florida. Quinn won his second straight match from a set down, defeating No. 2 seed Giulio Perego of Italy 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 for the singles title, then partnered with Perego to win the doubles title. The top seeds defeated Kian Vakili and Canada's Maxime St-Hilaire 6-3, 4-6, 10-6 in the final.

Stoiana, a Texas A&M recruit who turned 18 yesterday, dropped her first set of the tournament, in her win over No. 3 seed Martyna Ostrzygalo Canada, but won the next 10 sets she played, beating wild card Valeria Ray 6-1, 6-3 in today's final. Stoiana then defeated Ray again in the doubles final, with Stoiana and Sophie Llewellyn getting the better of Ray and her partner Ahmani Guichard, 6-1, 4-6, 10-6. 

Quinn's two titles should boost his chances of getting direct entry into the Wimbledon Junior Championships, although the details for that tournament have yet to be released.

Top seed Madison Brengle and unseeded Claire Liu are through to the semifinals of the $100,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit event in Charleston South Carolina. Brengle defeated wild card Katie Volynets 7-5, 7-6(3) to set up a meeting with unseeded Magdalena Frech of Poland. Liu, last week's Charlottesville champion, who has now won eight matches in a row, defeated qualifier Jamie Loeb(North Carolina) 6-2, 6-4 in today's quarterfinals. Liu will face unseeded Harriet Dart of Great Britain, who beat No. 7 seed Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3. Liu and Dart were scheduled to play last Friday in Charlottesville, but Dart gave Liu a walkover to the semifinals.

At the $25,000 USTA Women's Pro Circuit tournament in Naples Florida, Hanna Chang, the last American woman remaining, lost to Jesika Maleckova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. Former Vanderbilt star Fernanda Contreras continued her stellar play this week, with the qualifier defeating former WTA No. 60 Vera Lapko of Belarus 6-1, 6-4. Contreras will face unseeded Panna Udvardy of Hungary in Saturday's semifinals.