Seven American Men Reach NCAA D-I Singles Quarterfinals for First Time in Decades; Top Seed Stoiana, No. 8 Seed Alexa Noel Among Four US Women Advancing to Final Eight; Chicago to Play for D-III Men's and Women's Team Titles

©Colette Lewis 2024--
Stillwater Oklahoma--

A lot has changed in college tennis since the last time seven of the eight NCAA Division I men's singles quarterfinalists were from the United States. In 2002, they were champion Matias Boeker of Georgia, Nick Rainey of USC, Cal's John Paul Fruttero, David Martin of Stanford, finalist Jesse Witten of Kentucky, Ryan Haviland of Stanford and Georgia's Brandon Wagner. The sole international player in the Elite Eight was San Diego State's Oliver Maiberger of Germany.

After Wednesday's round of 16 at the Greenwood Tennis Center, played in drastically cooler temperatures than the first two rounds, that 2002 number was matched, with Jack Anthrop of Ohio State, No. 8 seed Ozan Baris of Michigan State, No. 9 seed Cooper Williams of Harvard, Colton Smith of Arizona, No. 9 seed Murphy Cassone of Arizona State, Michael Zheng of Columbia and JJ Tracy of Ohio State making Thursday's quarterfinals, with six of them beating international players.

The only all-US battle Wednesday morning was between Smith and No. 9 seed Nishesh Basavareddy of Stanford, who had played twice, at the top spot for their teams, with one match unfinished and the other claimed by Basavareddy in three sets. So it was no surprise that this match was close, particularly the first set, with Smith using support from the Arizona women's softball team to push him through a 7-6(2), 6-1 victory.

The softball team, which begins Super Regional play just down the street from the Tennis Center, made their presence felt late in the first set and throughout the second, cheering the increasingly confident shotmaking of the junior from Washington.

"It was super cool when we heard they were coming to Oklahoma," Smith said. "When they got there, definitely a little bit of nerves in the beginning, and I felt that I might have handled that a little better, but it super cool to have their support, have Arizona come together like that is something special."

Smith was unwilling to point to that boisterous support as the reason for his more straightforward performance in the second set, sympathizing with Basavareddy's discomfort.

"I don't think he was complaining at all, but it's tricky," Smith said. "I think if the roles were reversed it would definitely be something that would be difficult to deal with. You come into an individual tournament, thinking you are playing an individual match and all of a sudden it turns into a dual match. It was cool to kind of flip the switch a little bit, change back to what you'd been doing all year."

Smith will take on 2023 NCAA semifinalist Cassone, who had the shortest match of day, men or women, beating Latvian Karlis Ozolins of Illinois 6-1, 6-0 in 51 minutes.

Columbia sophomore  Zheng defeated Great Britain's Jake Fearnley of TCU, the No. 7 seed 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 and will meet Ohio State's Tracy, who beat Japan's Shunsuke Mitsui of Tennessee 6-3, 6-4. Columbia and Ohio State played in the team quarterfinals, did not face each other, with Zheng at line 1 and Tracy at line 3.

A second unseeded Buckeye is in the quarterfinals, with Anthrop advancing by taking a 7-5, 7-6(5) decision from Switzerland's Dylan Dietrich of Virginia. His opponent Thursday is Baris of Michigan State, who beat Great Britain's Jack Pinnington Jones of TCU, a No. 9 seed, 6-1, 7-6(5). Although Anthrop and Baris are both competing in the Big 10, they did not play this season, with Anthrop at line 4 and Baris at lines 1 or 2 for the Spartans.

Harvard freshman Williams put an end to the run of Spain's Pablo Masjuan of UC-Santa Barbara in a hard-fought 7-6(2), 6-3 contest. Williams will take on the only international player remaining, Slovenia's Filip Planinsek of Alabama, who ended the collegiate career of Texas's Micah Braswell, the No. 5 seed, 6-4, 6-4.

Planinsek kept the pressure on Braswell, who was on a 37-match winning streak coming into the round of 16. The 22-year-old junior had a slight hiccup at the end, broken at 15 when serving for the match at 5-3, but he recovered quickly and broke Braswell for one of his best wins.

"That might be the game I'll go back and watch," Planinsek said of the ninth game. "Definitely some nerves, I've never been on this stage before in college tennis. I qualified for this tournament once, lost in the second round my freshman year, coming off a bad season last year. I was a little nervous, I knew what was on the line, but I didn't react. I usually react, my emotions, I'm usually kind of pissed, but I kept my cool."

Given the stage, and the opportunity to qualify for the ITA and ATP's Accelerator Program for Challenger wild cards, this certainly counts as one of the best wins of Planinsek's career, but he has another that has aged very well.

"I would say this is one of the best matches I've played this season," Planinsek said. "There's been quite a few that are similar to this one, but I played (and defeated) Ben Shelton my freshman year. That was probably my best match ever. So yes, this is one of my best, but I'm not stopping here, I'm going for more and I'm excited for it."

The women's quarterfinals are split equally between international players and American players, and one of each are guaranteed to make the final.

Top seed Mary Stoiana of Texas A&M, the Team Championships Most Outstanding Player, kept her Triple Crown hopes alive with wins in both singles and doubles. Stoiana defeated Canadian Annabelle Xu of Virginia 6-2, 6-2, and her match's brevity was in stark contrast to that of UC-Santa Barbara's Amelia Honer, who needed more than two and a half hours to get past Mexico's Julia Garcia Ruiz of Oklahoma 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Honer, a junior from Pennsylvania, is the first woman from UC-Santa Barbara to reach the NCAA singles quarterfinals.

Unseeded Alexandra Yepifanova of Stanford and No. 8 seed Alexa Noel of Miami will meet in the second of the all-US quarterfinals. Yepifanova, a junior from Florida, defeated freshman Luciana Perry of Ohio State 7-6(4), 6-1, while Noel defeated Anika Yarlagadda of North Carolina 6-1, 6-2.

Noel said she was unsure if she favored the much cooler and slightly less windy conditions Wednesday or the more typical Florida heat and humidity of the first two days here.

"I don't know if I really have a preference," said Noel, who graduated from Miami this spring, but still has a year of eligibility remaining. "It's kind of beneficial for us, because we live in Miami and it's so hot all the time. It's easier to go from hot to cold than cold to hot. I think the only thing is to be mentally ready for these changes. You never really know what you're going to get, a tournament is a long time, a whole week, it's not two matches Friday, Sunday so I guess you have to be ready for anything, and I don't mind either."

Much is made of the physical and emotional challenges of competing in the individual tournament after participating in the team final, and it's true that no one in the men's final, save the Texas doubles team of Eliot Spizzirri and Cleeve Harper are still competing with three days left in the event. But five women who played in the final are still here in Stillwater; in addition to Stoiana and doubles partner Mia Kupres, there are Georgia's Anastasiia Lopata, Dasha Vidmanova, and Vidmanova's doubles partner Aysegul Mert.

Lopata and Vidmanova could meet in the semifinals if both win Thursday after Georgia's No. 1 and No. 4 advanced to the quarterfinals in straight sets. Lopata, a sophomore from Ukraine, defeated Sofia Johnson of Old Dominion 6-3, 7-5 and will play Vanderbilt's Celia-Belle Mohr. Mohr, a No. 9 seed, sent the Cowgirl tennis fans home disappointed after taking a 6-7(6), 6-1, 7-6(3) decision from Oklahoma State's Ange Oby Kajuru.

With her six-foot frame, Mohr possesses an effective serve and is most proud of her second one, which she used to devastating effect in the match's tense final moments.

"I use my height and my power to hurt my opponent as much as I can, said the junior from France. "I'm so confident on my second serve, sometimes more than my first serve, which is helpful. I have the ability to hit the spots that I want many times." 

No. 9 seed Vidmanova will take on No. 2 seed Amelia Rajecki of North Carolina State, who made the semifinals last year in Lake Nona. Vidmanova defeated No. 6 seed Connie Ma of Stanford 6-2, 6-4, while Rajecki battled past Irina Cantos Siemers of Ohio State 7-6(5), 6-2.

The doubles quarterfinals were completed this evening, with No. 2 seeds Oby Kajuru and Anastasiia Komar closing out the day's action at the Greenwood Tennis Center with a 7-5, 4-6, 10-8 victory over UC Santa Barbara's Honer and Kira Reuter. Top seeds Janice Tjen and Savannah Broadus of Pepperdine advanced in straight sets, as did No. 5 seeds Fiona Crawley and Carson Tanguilig of North Carolina, the defending champions.

The men's top seeds, Duke's Garrett Johns and Pedro Rodenas, ended the dream of a hometown men's champion with a 6-4, 4-6, 10-1 win over Tyler Zink and Isaac Becroft of Oklahoma State. No. 2 seed Holden Koons and DK Suresh of Wake Forest were beaten by 2023 finalists Harper and Spizzirri of Texas.

Due to a 10 to 20% chance of rain tomorrow, all eight singles quarterfinal matches are scheduled for 10 a.m. Central.  Doubles quarterfinals are scheduled for the afternoon.

Tune in to Cracked Racquets coverage on ESPN+. Live scoring is here. The NCAA tournament page is here.

The NCAA Division III Team Championships determined their men's finalists today, with the University of Chicago defeating Middlebury 5-2 and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps beating Bowdoin 5-4. The men will have a day off Thursday to prepare for the Friday final; the women played their semifinal matches Tuesday, with Chicago also advancing to Thursday's final against Wesleyan. Wesleyan dethroned two-time defending champions Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 5-3, while Chicago beat Pomona-Pitzer 5-4.

The women's bracket is here; the men's bracket is here.