Top Seed Ohio State, Defending Champion TCU Reach Monday's ITA Division I Team Indoor Final; Men's Pro Finals in Florida Postponed Until Monday; USC Women Defeat Michigan in Ann Arbor
Both Ohio State and TCU will be playing for their third ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor title at the Milstein Family Tennis Center at Columbia University Monday, with the Buckeyes, who last won the title in 2019, aiming to end the run of the two-time defending champions Horned Frogs.
Top seed Ohio State earned their place in the final for this first time since that 2019 title with a 4-0 win over No. 4 Virginia, while TCU made it three finals in a row with a 4-2 victory over No. 6 seed Wake Forest.
Ohio State had lost three straight doubles points, including Friday against Alabama and Saturday against Harvard, and they looked to be heading for a fourth consecutive loss of that often key point when Robert Cash and Alex Bernard went down a break to Dylan Dietrich and Inaki Montes at line 3. Montes had not played doubles in the previous two Virginia victories and was still unable to serve with his regular service motion, but did hold his own in the match, and he and Dietrich had two match points with Cash serving at 4-5, after the other two doubles matches had finished. Cash saved both, Montes held serve on a deciding point to go up 6-5 and Bernard held to force the tiebreaker that would determine the point.
On the first point of the tiebreaker, Dietrich hit a second serve to Cash, who replied with backhand return deep at the baseline. Dietrich called it out, and the chair umpire confirmed the call, but Virginia head coach Andres Pedroso corrected his player and told the chair the point should belong to Ohio State. Dietrich and Montes then went down 4-0 and 6-1, and after one hold of serve by Dietrich, the Buckeyes took the set on their second opportunity.
I don't cover college tennis in person as much as I used to, but over the years I've seen too many line call controversies to count, including many overrules on match points and several game penalties that ended matches. Yet I've never seen a college coach correct his or her player's call in a situation like that. In fact, I have rarely seen any of them overrule their own players period, regardless of the significance of the moment. Chair umpires miss calls, as everyone, including the chairs themselves, knows, but it is their job to keep coaches out of situations like the one Pedroso found himself in.
In this instance, Pedroso certainly had the option of deferring to the chair, but he did not take the easy way out, instead choosing to immediately rectify what he obviously saw as a clear mistake by both his player and the chair umpire. There have been several viral videos of egregious line calls by college players (often when chair umpires are not present) and irate viewers of those videos demand action from the coaches of those players. As I've said, any action of that nature is rare, but this deserves to get equal or greater exposure, to serve as an example of how college tennis might improve its reputation when it comes to line calling.
Now back to the semifinal. The loss of that doubles point wasn't ideal, but Virginia had come back from dropping the doubles point Saturday against Tennessee, who didn't manage another point despite taking three first sets in singles.
But Ohio State has been so rock solid in singles, especially in the bottom two positions, all year, that it proved too much for the Cavaliers, who dropped four first sets. Bernard again got a quick win at line 6, beating Mans Dahlberg 6-0, 6-3 and Cash followed with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Alex Kiefer at line 5 to make it 3-0. The other three matches were all going to third sets, so it was up to JJ Tracy to get the Buckeyes off the court with three straight-sets singles victories and he did, beating Montes 6-3, 6-4 at line 3 to hand the Cavalier senior his first singles loss this weekend, despite his inability to serve normally.
Like Ohio State, TCU has had difficulty with their doubles point, which was so solid last year. They lost their second straight doubles point today against Wake Forest, with the No. 2 team of Jack Pinnington Jones and Jake Fearnley unable to close out a 4-2 lead, losing four straight games to Filippo Moroni and Matthew Thomson of Wake Forest.
But as they had done Saturday against Texas A&M, TCU responded in singles, taking five first sets, and while Wake freshman Luca Pow gave the Demon Deacons a point, briefly tying the match after TCU's Lui Maxted at line 5 and Fearnley at line 1 had made it 2-1 Horned Frogs, 15 minutes later it was over, with Pinnington Jones at 2 and Sebastian Gorzny at 4 getting the third and fourth points within seconds of each other.
Monday's championship match, a rematch of the 2023 NCAA semifinal won by Ohio State, is scheduled for noon, with coverage available at the Cracked Racquets YouTube channel. Mike Cation and Alex Gruskin will provide the commentary.
There has yet to be a 4-3 match at this year's Team Indoor Championships, including in the consolation matches, with one of the latter still ongoing this evening. Could that sort of drama be in the cards for Monday?
ITA Division I Men's Team Indoor Semifinals:
February 18, 2024
New York, NY
Doubles:
1. Andrew Lutschaunig and Justin Boulais(OSU) d. Jeffrey von der Schulenburg and Chris Rodesch(UVA) 6-4
2. Edoardo Graziani and James Hopper(UVA) d. Cannon Kingsley and JJ Tracy 6-2
3. Robert Cash and Alexander Bernard(OSU) d. Dylan Dietrich and Inaki Montes(UVA) 7-6(2)
Order of finish: 2, 1, 3
Singles:
1. Cannon Kingsley(OSU) v Chris Rodesch(UVA) 6-4, 3-6, 1-0, unfinished
2. Dylan Dietrich(UVA) v Justin Boulais(OSU) 6-3, 4-6, 1-0, unfinished
3. JJ Tracy(OSU) d. Inaki Montes(UVA) 6-3, 6-4
4. Jeffrey von der Schulenburg(UVA) v Jack Anthrop(OSU) 6-4, 3-6, 2-0, unfinished
5. Robert Cash(OSU) d. Alexander Kiefer(UVA) 6-2, 6-2
6. Alexander Bernard(OSU) d. Mans Dahlberg(UVA) 6-0, 6-3
Order of finish: 6, 5, 3
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Doubles:
1. Holden Koons and DK Suresh(WAKE) d. Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives(TCU) 6-3
2. Filippo Moroni and Matthew Thomson(WAKE) d. Jack Pinnington Jones and Jake Fearnley(TCU) 6-4
3. Duncan Chan and Lui Maxted(TCU) d. Luca Pow and Luciano Tacchi(WAKE) 6-3
Order of finish: 3, 1, 2
Singles:
1. Jake Fearnley(TCU) d. Filippo Moroni(WAKE) 6-2, 6-3
2. Jack Pinnington Jones(TCU) d. DK Suresh(WAKE) 7-5, 6-2
3. Pedro Vives(TCU) v Matthew Thomson(WAKE) 6-4, 5-4, unfinished
4. Sebastian Gorzny(TCU) d. Luciano Tacchi(WAKE) 6-1, 7-6(3)
5. Lui Maxted(TCU) d. Holden Koons(WAKE) 6-1, 6-2
6. Luca Pow(WAKE) d. Tomas Jirousek(TCU) 6-1, 6-2
Order of finish: 5, 1, 6, 2, 4
Consolation matches
Arizona State[15] 4, Michigan[11] 2
Tennessee[5] 4, Harvard[9] 0
Texas[3] 4, South Carolina[7] 0
Alabama[16] 4, USC[12] 1
Columbia[8] 4, Duke[13] 0
Arizona[14] 4, Texas A&M[10] 1
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None of the three men's professional finals were played today in Florida, with rain washing out all three of the championship matches, singles and doubles at the ATP 250 Delray Beach Open, and singles at USTA Pro Circuit $15,000 tournament in Palm Coast.
The doubles final between top seeds Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and Neal Skupski(LSU) of Great Britain and No. 3 seeds Julian Cash(Mississippi State/Oklahoma State) of Great Britain and Robert Galloway(Wofford) is set for 10:30 a.m. Monday, with Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul scheduled to decide the singles championship beginning at 12:30 p.m.
In Palm Coast, No. 8 seed Andres Andrade(Florida) of Ecuador will be facing No. 2 seed Dmitry Popko of Kazakhstan in the final, scheduled for 10:00 a.m.
The doubles final did get played Saturday in Palm Coast, with Andrade and Alex Rybakov(TCU), the top seeds, winning their second straight title. The Sunrise $15K champions defeated No. 3 seeds Finn Reynolds(Ole Miss) of New Zealand and Juan Sebastian Gomez of Colombia 6-1, 6-3 in the final.
In a notable result today in women's college tennis, No. 17 Southern California defeated No. 2 Michigan 4-2 in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines, finalists last Monday at the Women's Team Indoor in Seattle, dropped the doubles point to USC, with the Trojans winning at lines 5, 6 and 3, although who was playing what position is unclear with the two schools providing different players in various positions in their recaps. Senior Jaedan Brown did not play singles or doubles for Michigan today.
1 comments:
From what I saw, it seems that Coach Pedroso overruled his own player at about the same time the official confirmed an out call. I actually saw this happening multiple times during my two days at Team Indoors so it is good to see coaches help police their own player. Quite often, I want to believe there was no sinister attempt by the player, rather just an honest mistake
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