With the Division I ITA Women's Team Indoor Championships concluding yesterday with North Carolina's fourth consecutive title, attention turns to the Men's Team Indoor, which begins Friday in Chicago. The draw was released today, and unlike the women's event, which seeds just the top eight and randomly places the unseeded eight, each of the 16 men's teams has a seeding attached and first round matches have No. 1 v No. 16, No. 2 v No. 15, etc. Given that format, there is little room to adjust to avoid first round matches within conferences, so four of the eight first round matches are between teams that will see each other at least one more time in conference play and possibly also in the conference tournament.
With that method of seeding, there will be no Pepperdine - North Carolina match like we saw in the first round of the women's tournament, and theoretically at least, the No. 8 vs No. 9 match will be the closest. Below are Friday's first round matchups and times:
Men's Division I Team Indoor first round matches, all times Central
Ohio State[1] v Illinois[16] 6:30 pm
Kentucky[2] v Florida[15] noon
TCU[3] v Baylor[14] 9 am
Michigan[4] v Stanford[13] 3:30 pm
Virginia[5] v Tennessee[12] 3:30 pm
South Carolina[6] v Georgia[11] 9 am
Southern California[7] v North Carolina[10] noon
Texas[8] v Wake Forest[9] 6:30 pm
Two of these matches are repeats of non-conference duals played in the past three weeks, with Ohio State beating Illinois 6-1 on January 22 and TCU defeating Baylor 4-1 last Wednesday.
Cracked Racquets will be providing their CrossCourt coverage throughout the weekend on their
YouTube Channel.
The USTA Pro Circuit has an inexplicable lack of tournaments this week, with just one men's
$15,000 event in Weston Florida. The women have nothing this week or next, so many of the Americans who competed at the USTA Pro Circuit $25Ks and $60Ks in January and the first half of this month are at the
$25K in the Dominican Republic or the
$60K+Hospitality in Mexico. There is also a
men's $25K in the Dominican Republic this week, which has drawn several Americans in the 400-600 range. Eighteen-year-old Nico Godsick received a wild card which marks his return from injury, with the Stanford signee playing competitively for the first time since the US Open Junior Championships.
Qualifying concluded today in Weston, with two Americans, Jaycer Lyeons(Tyler JC) and Jacob Brumm(Cal/Baylor) advancing to the main draw.
As was the case in last week's
$15K in Palm Coast Florida, Francisco Comesana of Argentina is the top seed. Junior reserve entries include Harvard recruit Cooper Williams, Juan Carlos Prado Angelo of Bolivia, Orange Bowl finalist Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez of Mexico, and with a junior exempt entry, Georgia recruit Ignacio Buse of Peru. Buse drew the other 18-year-old junior standout from Peru, No. 7 seed Gonzalo Bueno, in the first round. They are, naturally, playing doubles together this week and won their opening match today.
Wild cards went to Mwendwa Mbithi, Junior Tavarez of the Dominican Republic and juniors Kyle Kang and Aidan Kim. Last week's champion in Palm Coast, former Baylor All-American Adrian Boitan of Romania, received a special exemption into the main draw. All 16 first round singles matches are scheduled for Wednesday.
The highly ranked American men are mostly at the second straight
ATP 250 in the United States, with the Delray Beach Open featuring a dozen Americans, including top two seeds Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul. JJ Wolf(Ohio State) is through to the second round, as is Michael Mmoh, Mackenzie McDonald, Denis Kudla and the winner of tonight's match between two NCAA singles champions: Florida's Ben Shelton(2022) and UCLA's Marcos Giron(2014).
Jack Sock, who received a wild card, is playing former Princeton star Matija Pecotic of Croatia, who qualified for his first ATP main draw over the weekend at the age of 33. For more on the long, strange, and often unlucky, tennis journey Pecotic has been on, see
this article from the ATP website.
2 comments:
Half the men’s matches are intra conference. Seems a little rigid. For a national event, would it really hurt to switch Florida and Baylor so that they mix up the matchups a bit. I understand the idea for the #1 seed to play the lowest seed. Ok. But at one of 2 national team events during the year, I would rather not see half the first round matches be intra conference matchups.
10000% CORRECT College Fan & a Fumble on the ITA for NOT having a rule against Conference Teams playing each other in the First Round of the ITA National Tournament!
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