At May's men's Division I singles championships in Stillwater Oklahoma, seven of the eight quarterfinalists were from the United States, but despite those odds, Slovenia's Filip Planinsek of Alabama emerged as the champion. In this fall's singles and doubles championships in Waco Texas, which have been decoupled from the team championships for the first time this year, the chance that an American would win the title were a coin flip, with four quarterfinalists and two semifinalists from the United States.
But those two semifinalists, unseeded Ozan Baris of Michigan State and No. 2 Michael Zheng of Columbia advanced to Sunday's final, guaranteeing an American champion.
Zheng, who reached the final last year, losing in three sets to Planinsek, was the recipient of a retirement from Texas freshman Timo Legout, who was suffering from an illness that kept him up most of Friday night. After Zheng broke him for a second time in the first set, Legout retired down 1-4, with his winning streak to start his collegiate career ending at 24(singles and doubles).
"Obviously tough for Timo, it's never the way you want to win," Zheng told Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin. "But I'm happy to be back in the finals. It was a tough loss six months ago, not even last year, so I'm hoping to actually get the title this time."
Zheng admitted that he needed time to process his loss in the May final.
"It took a little while to shake it off," said 20-year-old junior from New Jersey. Zheng, the first player to reach back-to-back men's NCAA finals since Steve Johnson of Southern California in 2011 and 2012. "But it's tennis, you lose way more than you win, so I was happy to get back on court after that, went straight to France to train on clay and then played pro events in the summer and got it going toward the end of the summer and I'm playing some of my best tennis now."
If Zheng's loss in the final was tough, it probably wasn't as difficult to overcome as Baris's loss in the semifinals against Planinsek, where he had four match points, including a 6-3 lead in the third-set tiebreaker before losing 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(6).
Baris, who is unseeded this week despite being ranked No. 1 in the ITA preseason rankings, defeated DK Suresh of Wake Forest, a No. 9 seed, 7-5, 7-6(5) to wipe away those bad memories.
Baris managed to stay patient and hold serve while waiting for the big-serving Suresh to give him an opportunity. He got it at 5-all, breaking Suresh at love, and then was able to serve out the set without incident. Baris took a 2-0 lead in the second set, but poor service game early in the set, his only one of the match, gave Suresh some hope, and the junior from India took a 3-2 lead, with Baris serving from behind the rest of the way. He forced the tiebreaker with a love hold, but then fell behind 4-1 before Suresh began to falter with a third set in sight.
Baris won the next four points, with Suresh throwing in a double fault to give Baris a 5-4 lead. When Suresh hit a forehand long, Baris had two match points, with one more serve coming, but he netted a backhand. If any bad memories from May surfaced then, he didn't reveal them, and Suresh missed his first serve, giving Baris another reasonable chance. His return forced Suresh into a backhand slice, and when it went into the net, Michigan State had its first NCAA men's singles finalist.
"In the tiebreak, I was really tough in the big moments," the 20-year-old junior from Michigan told Gruskin. "And that's what got me through."
Baris is now letting himself think about winning the title.
"I had, and still have, a couple of things I wanted to get off the checklist," Baris said. "One of them is winning a championship; for myself in individuals, and obviously for the team as well. Now I actually get the opportunity to play for it. You really can't ask for much more. Obviously I'm going to feel some nerves, but the way I look at it, this round I wasn't playing for a championship, in the quarterfinals I wasn't playing for a national championship. Those matches still meant a ton to me, but tomorrow I have a great opportunity and I'm going to enjoy that, because I'm actually able to see where I'm at when my goal and what I want is so close to me."
Baris and Zheng played last September in a fall event in South Carolina, with Zheng posting a 6-0, 6-4 win.
Both Baris and Zheng have earned places in the USTA's new US Open Collegiate Wild Card Playoff next spring, with the other two players to be selected after the dual match season.
Unseeded DJ Bennett of Auburn will also receive an invitation to the women's USO Wild Card Playoff event, after she defeated Oklahoma's Julia Garcia Ruiz, a No. 9 seed, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5.
The match looked like it was shaping up to be a rout when Bennett blasted her serve and forehand for winner after winner, showing no nerves and a level that would not be out of place at any WTA 250 tournament. But sustaining that level was unlikely, and Garcia Ruiz began to find patterns that worked, helping her go on offense instead of expending all her energy trying to defend.
Garcia Ruiz went up 3-1 in the third set, but Bennett didn't panic, and it was Garcia Ruiz, a junior from Mexico, who made the key unforced errors down the stretch.
"After playing a first set like that, it's hard to keep that level," said the 21-year-old junior from Florida. "So I was expecting her to have a sort of comeback. I was trying to stick to what works, bringing back the level I had in the first set, making sure that I made my first serve, staying calm when I was down, making sure that I don't freak myself out about the situation."
Bennett is the first NCAA women's singles finalist is Auburn's history, and she is trying not to be overwhelmed by this run.
"It means everything and more to play in the finals, have this opportunity, be the first person in Auburn history to make it to the finals, it's pretty cool," Bennett said. "Again, I'm at a loss for words, but I'm just living in the moment, that's all I'm trying to do, and have fun."
Bennett will face No. 2 seed Dasha Vidmanova of Georgia, who advanced to the final with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Julia Fliegner of Michigan.
As with the other women's semifinal, this looked to be a mismatch when Vidmanova, who has had the most difficult route to the semifinals, took a 4-1 lead in the first set. But Fliegner began to find her range, while Vidmanova retreated into defending, with Fliegner winning five straight games to take the set.
Vidmanova, now 331 in the WTA rankings after four Pro Circuit titles this summer and fall including a W50 title earlier this month in Miami, didn't doubt she could reverse her slide.
"I knew that it was mostly on me, so I still felt confident, even after the first set," said the 21-year-old senior from the Czech Republic. "I was just trying to get back in it, put it behind me, forget about it, and that's what I did."
With her serve improving, Vidmanova took a 4-1 lead in the second set, and this time closed it out, with a similar pattern developing in the third set.
"I was just trying to stay in it, I knew I would have a chance," said Vidmanova, who won the NCAA doubles title, with Aysegul Mert in May. "It was a good match, in the third set, and I'm happy I got it done. I think Julia played very well, throughout the whole match, maybe there were moments when she gave me a few free points, but what I tried to do is the serve-plus-one because she can't really be aggressive then."
Vidmanova, who played in both the team final, a loss to Texas A&M, and the doubles final six days later, is accustomed to the biggest stages in college tennis.
"I know it's like the final and everything, but it's just another match to play the way I want to play," Vidmanova said. "Hopefully I can focus on myself, my serve, my game, the things I want to do, and I think by doing that I'll have a good chance."
The men's and women's singles finals are both scheduled for 11 a.m. Central time Sunday, with the doubles finals to follow. Cracked Racquets will have coverage at ESPN; live scoring is here.
The doubles finals will also feature two American teams, with UCLA's Kate Fakih and Olivia Center playing for the women's title, and Michigan's Benjamin Kittay and Gavin Young competing in the men's final.
Fakih and Center, one of the No. 5 seeds, defeated the unseeded Auburn team of Bennett and Ava Hrastar 6-2, 3-6, 10-7. After trailing 5-4 in the tiebreaker, Fakih and Center won the next five points. The freshmen, who won the USTA 18s doubles National Championships in 2023, dropped the next two points, but Fakih's good first serve on the third match point sealed their victory.
Fakih and Center will play the unseeded Virginia team of Melodie Collard and Elaine Chervinsky, who had an equally tense semifinal win, beating unseeded Alicia Dudeney and Rachel Gailis of Florida 1-6, 6-3, 10-8. Collard and Chervinsky are the first Virginia team to reach the NCAA doubles final.
Fakih and Center, both Americans, have earned a spot in the USTA's US Open wild card playoffs for doubles team by reaching the final.
The unseeded Kittay and Young are the first men's team from Michigan to reach an NCAA final after their 6-4, 6-2 win over No. 5 seeds Youcef Rihane and Alex Bulte of Florida State. They will play another No. 5 seed, Pedro Vives and Lui Maxted of TCU, who defeated Legout and Lucas Brown of Texas 6-4, 6-2. With Legout's illness, with Brown also under the weather, there was a question as to whether that match would even be played, but the Longhorns did their best despite being far from healthy.
While the matches didn't go Texas's way in Waco, back home in Austin, Texas senior Pierre-Yves Bailly of Belgium picked up two victories today at the $25,000 men's Pro Circuit tournament. The eighth-seeded Bailly, the defending champion, defeated No. 2 seed Duarte Vale(Florida) of Portugal 6-2, 7-6(2) to set up a meeting with No. 6 seed and doubles partner Stefan Dostanic(USC, Wake Forest). Dostanic, who is now on a nine match winning streak after winning the Boca Raton $15K last week, defeated No. 3 seed Alastair Gray of Great Britain 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.
Bailly and Dostanic won the doubles title, with the unseeded pair beating top seeds Cleeve Harper(Texas) of Canada and Pat Harper(Tennessee) of Australia 7-5, 6-3.
Two current collegians are also through to the final at the $15,000 men's tournament in Tallahassee Florida. Ohio State junior Jack Anthrop, the No. 9 seed, defeated No. 4 seed Leo Vithoontien(Carleton) 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals, and will play Harvard senior Daniel Milavsky, a qualifier, who beat No. 3 seed Will Grant(Florida) 6-1, 6-4.
Top seeds Tim Ruehl(Arizona State, TCU) and Patrick Zahraj(UCLA) of Germany won the doubles title, beating No. 3 seeds Tristan McCormick(Notre Dame, Georgia) and Fred Simonsson of Sweden 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 in the final.
No. 7 seed Whitney Osuigwe reached the final of the W50 in Boca Raton, defeating No. 5 seed Anna Rogers(NC State) 6-1, 6-1. Osuigwe will play No. 6 seed Eva Vedder of the Netherlands, who ended qualifier Mayu Crossley's run with a 6-1, 6-4 semifinal victory.
Rogers and Alicia Herrero Linana(Baylor) of Spain won the doubles title, with the No. 3 seeds defeating No. 2 seeds Maria Kononova(North Texas) and Maria Kozyreva(St. Mary's) of Russia 6-2, 6-1.
After a grueling fall season on the USTA Pro Challenger Circuit, which earned him an Australian Open wild card, Stanford junior Nishesh Basavareddy has continued his season in Mexico, where he has reached the final of the ATP 50 in Puerto Vallarta with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Oklahoma junior Luis Alvarez of Mexico. Basavareddy, the No. 1 seed, will face No. 6 seed Liam Draxl(Kentucky) of Canada for the title Sunday. Basavareddy has now made three Challenger finals and one semifinal in the past four weeks.
