Isner and Opelka Reach US Men's Clay Court Final; Kentucky Beats No. 5 Tennessee, Faces Georgia Sunday; Sarasota Challenger Qualifying Features Ten Americans; Kudla Heads Main Draw

Reilly Opelka, the No. 3 seed, and John Isner, the No. 4 seed, will meet Sunday in Houston for the title at the US Men's Clay Court Championships. Social media has come up with many jokes, including from both players, about an unlikely final between two seven-footers known for their serves, but they earned their spots.

 Opelka defeated the always dangerous Nick Kyrgios of Australia 6-3, 7-5 in today's first semifinal, while the former University of Georgia All-American took out defending champion Christian Garin of Chile 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The odd thing about today's results was the absence of tiebreakers. The last four times Opelka and Isner have played, every one of the 12 sets they played was decided by a tiebreaker. Opelka won all four of those matches, including in the semifinals at the new Dallas 250 in February. That was a 7-6(7), 7-6(22) win for Opelka, with that 46 points setting a new ATP record for most in a tiebreaker. 

Comments from both Isner and Opelka on their paths to the final and what they are expecting Sunday can be found at this ATP article.

With only a couple of weekends before conference tournaments begin, highly ranked Division I teams are jockeying for regular season titles and for seedings in those conference tournaments, as well as for Top 16 and Top 8 rankings that will allow them to host NCAA matches in the post-season. 

The Kentucky men have a major opportunity to enhance those positions this weekend and they got off to a good start on Friday night, with the No. 12 Wildcats defeating No. 5 Tennessee 4-3 in Lexington. Joshua Lapadat clinched the victory for Kentucky with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Angel Diaz of Tennessee at line 5, after the Volunteers had taken the doubles point. 

On Sunday at 1 p.m., Kentucky will host No. 10 Georgia on Senior Day. For links to scoring and video on all of Sunday's Division I matches, go to collegetennisranks.com.

Cracked Racquets will be covering the Big Ten action Sunday on its YouTube channel.

After a week with no tennis on the USTA Pro Circuit, action begins Sunday with the first round of qualifying for the ATP Challenger 100 in Sarasota. Ten US men will be in the 24-player qualifying draw: Christian Langmo(Miami), Emil Reinberg[WC](Georgia), Alex Rybakov[9](TCU), Martin Damm[WC], Aleks Kovacevic[10](Illinois), Christian Harrison[4], Felix Corwin[WC], Alex Lawson(Notre Dame), Victor Lilov[WC] and Zachary Svajda[11].

Eleven Americans are in the main draw, Denis Kudla[1], Michael Mmoh[WC], Jack Sock[7], Steve Johnson(USC)[4],Nicolas Moreno De Alboran(UC-Santa Barbara), Mitchell Krueger, Govind Nanda(UCLA)[WC], JJ Wolf(Ohio State), Tennys Sandgren(Tennessee), Bjorn Fratangelo and Ryan Harrison[WC].