Four Top Seeds Win Conference Titles, but Florida State Ends ACC Run of Virginia Men; Madrid Masters 1000 Wild Cards for Grant and Blanch; Stephens Claims WTA 250 Title

Five Power 5 conference tournament titles were decided today (the Oklahoma State women won the Big 12 title last night over Texas) and four of them went, with varying degrees of difficulity, to the No. 1 seeds: the North Carolina women, Texas men, Kentucky men and Georgia women. The shocking result came early in the day, with the Florida State men, seeded No. 6, coming back to defeat three-time defending champion Virginia 4-3 after trailing 3-1.

The match, which began at 10 a.m. and finished at 1:30 p.m., was played indoors at the Cary Tennis Center in North Carolina. Top seed Virginia, who hadn't lost an ACC match in four regular seasons and had claimed the conference tournament title the past three years, looked on their way to a fourth after taking the doubles point with a 6-0 shutout at line 1 and a routine 6-3 win at line 2, although Florida State had taken line 3.

The teams split first sets, so Virginia was in position for a win by just holding on in those three matches, and senior Alex Kiefer did his part at line 5, taking out Joshua Dous-Karpenschif 6-2, 6-3, and giving FSU the daunting task of having to win four of the five remaining singles matches to get the win.

Jamie Connel, the hero of the Seminoles 4-3 win over Wake Forest in Saturday's semifinals, got that uphill climb started when, in the only other match that finished in straight sets, he defeated Jeffrey Von Der Schulenburg 6-4, 7-6(0) at line 3. With the remaining four matches all going to three sets, Florida State was obviously still in it, but when Virginia's Dylan Dietrich closed out Youcef Rihane 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to make it 3-1, the Cavaliers just needed one of the three matches still out.

Even when Loris Pourroy made it 3-2 with a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win over Inaki Montes at line 2, and Alex Bulte beat Mans Dahlberg 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-2 at line 6 to tie it at 3, prospects for Virginia's escape looked good, with Chris Rodesch up 5-2 over Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc in the third set. Cornut-Chauvinc had recovered mentally from his third overrule (and point penalty) and the subsequent Rodesch let cord ace that had allowed the Virginia senior to hold for 4-2, and had managed to extend the match by saving two match points with Rodesch serving at 5-3 40-30. But Rodesch earned two more match points with Cornut-Chauvinc serving at 4-5, 30-40 only to fail to convert those, and the FSU senior, who had beaten Rodesch in their previous meeting in Tallahassee in March, took control. He broke Rodesch and served out the match, to deliver the first ACC title in program history.

For more on the historic win for Florida State, see this article from seminoles.com.

The ACC women's championship, played after the men's match, also indoors, went to the University of North Carolina, who defeated No. 2 seeds Virginia 4-1. The Tar Heels took the doubles point, but Virginia came out strong in singles, taking four first sets. 

But UNC began to work their way back, led by Elizabeth Scotty, who had dropped the first set 6-0 in her match with Hibah Shaikh at line 2. Scotty took the second set, Reilly Tran closed out her first set and Fiona Crawley was up a set on Annabelle Xu at line 1, so a path began to emerge for the defending NCAA champions. Scotty and Tran closed out those matches to give North Carolina a 3-0 lead, and although Natasha Subhash earned a point for the Cavaliers with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 win over Carson Tanguilig at line 3, and Crawley and Anika Yarlagadda were early in third sets, freshman Tatum Evans closed out the victory, beating Melodie Collard 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 at line 6.  See goheels.com for the full box score.

At the Big 12 conference tournament in Stillwater, Texas easily won the rubber match against rival TCU, with the Longhorns earning a 4-0 victory. After taking the doubles point, Texas got straight-sets singles wins from Siem Woldeab at line 5, Pierre-Yves Bailly at line 4 and Gilles-Arnaud Bailly at line 3 to earn Texas's first Big 12 tournament title since 2018.

Like Texas, Kentucky went undefeated in both the regular season and the conference tournament, with the Wildcats beating No. 11 seed South Carolina 4-2 in Baton Rouge.  After the doubles point was decided in a tiebreaker on Court 1, in favor of Kentucky, South Carolina came out strong in singles and took a 2-1 lead with Toby Samuel beating Taha Baadi at line 1 and freshman Sean Daryabeigi defeating Jaden Weekes at line 3. 

But once Kentucky freshman Eli Stephenson came from 5-2 down in the first set to take it 7-6(4) at line 6, the tide turned in Kentucky's favor. The Wildcats got straight-set wins from Charlelie Cosnet at line 4 and Joshua Lapadat at line 2 to take a 3-2 lead and Stephenson closed out Carter Morgan 6-3 in the second set for the clinch. The only three-set match of the day was at line 5, with Jack Loutit and Jelani Sarr at 4-3 in the third.

The SEC women's final closed out the day, with Georgia defeating No. 2 seed Texas A&M 4-1 at the new indoor tennis facility in Athens. The Aggies, who had struggled a bit in their 4-2 semifinal win over Florida on Saturday, couldn't get going against a Georgia team that appears to be firing on all cylinders now. After taking the doubles point, Georgia got wins from Dasha Vidmanova at line 1, Mell Reasco at line 3 and Anastasiia Lopata at line 4, while Texas A&M picked up their point at line 5, with freshman Lucciana Perez beating Guillermina Grant. Carson Branstine, playing in just her third match since returning to A&M, finished her match with Vidmanova in tears after what appeared to be a hip injury suffered early in the second set. 

The last two conferences to play their tournaments are the Pac-12 and Big Ten, who finished their regular seasons today and will begin tournament play next week.

The WTA and ATP Masters 1000 in Madrid begins with qualifying Monday, and 16-year-old Tyra Grant, who won the ITF J300 in France yesterday has received a qualifying wild card. She will play No. 9 seed Laura Siegemund of Germany in the first round. 

The women's main draw is here.

Sixteen-year-old Darwin Blanch, who reached the semifinals of a men's ITF WTT $15K last week, has been awarded a main draw wild card, as have 2022 US Open boys champion Martin Landaluce of Spain and 2023 US Open boys champion Joao Fonseca of Brazil. The men's main draw will be held Monday.

Mitchell Krueger fell short in his quest for a second Challenger title in 2024, with Zizou Bergs of Belgium winning his second title in as many weeks at the ATP Challenger 75 in Tallahassee. The No. 2 seed defeated Krueger 6-4, 7-6(9) in a match delayed several hours at the start due to rain.

Sloane Stephens won her eighth WTA title today on indoor clay at the 250 event in Rouen France. The 31-year-old, seeded No. 6, defeated unseeded Magda Linette of Poland 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in the final. 

Taylor Fritz lost in the final of the ATP 250 in Munich, his first career final on clay, with Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany earning his first ATP title at age 33 with a 7-5, 6-3 victory.