Ohio State No. 1 Seed for This Weekend's Men's Team Indoor Championships; Forbes Qualifies, Bigun Picks Up First Round Win at Palm Coast $15K; Svajda and Kypson Defeat Seeds to Advance to Second Round at ATP Delray Beach

With barely 24 hours having passed since Oklahoma State defeated Michigan in the final of the ITA Division I Women's Team Indoor Championships, the draw for the men's version has been released, with Ohio State again at No. 1. Last year Ohio State was the top seed, but lost 4-3 to Texas in the quarterfinals; this year the Buckeyes will take on Alabama in the first round, with the winner of the all-Ivy league battle between No. 8 Columbia and No. 9 Harvard their quarterfinal opponent. Columbia is hosting the tournament this year at the Milstein Family Tennis Center, their new facility, with the USTA's Billie Jean King National Tennis Center serving as the secondary site.

There a couple of differences between the men's and women's tournaments, with the men seeding all 16 teams, while the women only seed eight. That means that unlike the women's draw, there is no opportunity to adjust opponents to avoid first round conference matches, hence the Harvard - Columbia first round, the Duke - Virginia first round and the Texas A&M - South Carolina first round. 

I was a bit surprised to see both Harvard and Southern Cal as high as they are in the seedings, as both lost last weekend, with Harvard falling to Kentucky in Lexington and Southern Cal losing to both Oklahoma State and Baylor on the road. The Trojans did fall from 5 to 12, and Harvard went from 8 to 9, so neither are expected to reach the quarterfinals. 

The good news for Virginia fans is that Inaki Montes is listed in Virginia's lineup; he has yet to play a singles match for the Cavaliers this year. There is bad news for both USCs however, with Connor Thomson, South Carolina's No. 2, not listed their Team Indoor lineup and Stefan Dostanic, Southern Cal's No. 1, not in the lineup the Trojans submitted. Dostanic did not play in either of their losses this past weekend. 

ITA Men's Division I Team Indoor Championships Seeds
1. Ohio State
2. TCU
3. Texas
4. Virginia
5. Tennessee
6. Wake Forest
7. South Carolina
8. Columbia
9. Harvard
10. Texas A&M
11. Michigan
12. Southern Cal
13. Duke
14. Arizona
15. Arizona State
16. Alabama

Friday's Schedule:

9:00 a.m.

Virginia[4] v Duke[13] at Milstein

TCU[2] v Arizona State[15] at BJKNTC

Noon

Tennessee[5] v Southern Cal[12] at Milstein

South Carolina[7] v Texas A&M[10] at BJKNTC

3:30 pm

Ohio State[1] v Alabama[16] at Milstein

Texas[3] v Arizona[14] at BJKNTC

6:30 pm

Columbia[8] v Harvard[9] at Milstein

Wake Forest[6] v Michigan[11] at BJKNTC

There is just one USTA Pro Circuit tournament this week, a $15,000 event in Palm Coast Florida. Qualifying concluded today, with seven of the eight players reaching the main draw from the United States. There are Will Grant(Florida), Patrick Maloney(Michigan), Ryan Dickerson(Duke/Baylor), Henrik Wiersholm(Virginia), Thomas Brown(South Carolina/UNC-Charlotte), Evan Bynoe(Cornell) and 17-year-old Matthew Forbes.

For the second week in a row, Jaycer Lyeons(Tyler JC) received entry into the main draw as a lucky loser.

North Carolina signee Forbes, who doesn't have an ATP ranking and was a wild card into qualifying, will face Dickerson in the first round Wednesday. 

Other teens in the main draw are three who received entry via the ITF's junior reserved program: Roy Horovitz, Alexander Razeghi and Kaylan Bigun. Bigun played his first round match today, beating Dan Martin(Dartmouth/Miami) of Canada 6-3, 7-5. Wild cards were given to University of Florida freshman Adithya Ganesan and Aidan Kim, Axel Nefve(Notre Dame/Florida) and Dian Nedev of Bulgaria.

As was the case last week at the $15K in Sunrise, Toby Kodat and Kazakhstan's Dimitry Popko are the top two seeds. 

In addition to the $15K in Florida, the second ATP 250 of the year in the United States is underway in Delray Beach, with Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and Adrian Mannarino of France the top four seeds, with byes into the second round.

Wild cards were given to Emilio Nava, Patrick Kypson(Texas A&M) and Aleks Kovacevic(Illinois) with Kypson, who won the Cleveland Challenger two weeks ago, getting his first ATP level main draw win last night. The 2017 Kalamazoo 18s champion defeated No. 5 seed Miomir Kecmanovic 6-4, 7-6(3), earning his best win by ranking over the ATP No. 40 from Serbia. Nava lost to Dallas Open finalist Marcos Giron(UCLA) 6-4, 7-6(5) tonight and Kovacevic was beaten by qualifier Nicolas Moreno de Alboran(UC-Santa Barbara) 6-2, 7-6(3).

Another Kalamazoo 18s champion, Zachary Svajda, who won in both 2019 and 2021, got through qualifying with wins over Ethan Quinn(Georgia) and Gabriel Diallo(Kentucky) of Canada. The 21-year-old then claimed his best win by ATP ranking, beating No. 8 seed Max Purcell of Australia, currently No. 41, 7-5, 6-3 in today's first round. Svajda's previous best win by ATP ranking was also Purcell, who was No. 78 when Svajda defeated him in the first round of the ATP 500 in Washington DC last summer. Svajda will play lucky loser Flavio Cobolli of Italy in the second round.