Top Seed Gorzny, No. 4 Seed Overbeck Fall on All-American Day, Freshmen Impress in Women's Draw at NCAA Division I Championships; Women's D-I Fall Signing Updates
A day after both ITA All-American champions lost at the NCAA Division I individual championships in Waco Texas, the finalists followed them out of the singles draws, with top seed Sebastian Gorzny of Texas, the men's A-A finalist, falling to Princeton's Paul Inchauspe 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 and No. 4 seed Elza Tomase of Tennessee losing to Auburn freshman Merna Refaat 7-5, 6-4.
Inchauspe, a sophomore from France, was No. 11 in the ITA preseason rankings, but not seeded this week, in spite of an 18-4 record this fall. He qualified at the East Sectional ten days ago, winning the title in North Carolina, but used his previous experience in the cool and windy conditions in Waco today to his advantage.
"Conditions, I won't say I enjoyed them, but it felt familiar, like in New York, Princeton, New Jersey," Inchauspe told Cracked Racquets Alex Gruskin. "It's very similar weather, a bit windy, cold like this, so it felt familiar and it felt pretty good on the court today."
Inchauspe said his strategy was to make Gorzny work to hold.
"I think making him play as many balls on his serve was a big (key) today," Inchauspe said. "He was under pressure; I was winning points on his serve pretty regularly, which was good. He's a very good player, so I tried for a high first serve percentage, and today, I felt like going into his backhand was a better play and maybe he missed more there. But it was small adjustments I made throughout the match that helped me and allowed me to win today."
Inchauspe admitted that earning All-American status, which all 32 singles winners today did, was not something he considered important early in his career.
"It's a great achievement," Inchauspe said. "Being foreign, you don't go into college thinking about it, but for Americans and for people who are very familiar with college it's a very big deal, so obviously I'm extremely happy. In May, I was supposed to play singles and I had to pull out injured, so I happy I was able to achieve that status today."
Inchauspe will face 9-16 seed Corey Craig of Florida State, who defeated Emon Van Loben Sels of UCLA 6-2, 6-2.
Egypt's Refaat was one of two freshmen still remaining, both in the women's draw, and while her win over Tomase including a comeback from 4-0 down in the first set, it paled in comparison to that of Stanford freshman Valerie Glozman, who trailed Lily Jones of Michigan 5-1 in the third set before posting a 6-0 4-6, 7-6(2) victory.
Jones served for the match at 5-2, 5-4 and 6-5, but never got to a match point, and Glozman dominated the tiebreaker against Jones, who also hits both her forehand and backhand two-handed.
"It was a really tough match and I wasn't sure it was going to happen today," said the No. 5 seed, who turns 18 Friday. "I know people get really nervous when they're ahead, and it's happened to me as well, so I just thought I could play as hard as I could and it ended up working out today, but I was definitely playing with fire a little bit."
Glozman admitted that Jones's speed and her ability to make her hit an extra shot bothered her.
"She was getting everything back and I was having trouble putting away the last shot, and I was getting a little frustrated," Glozman told Alex Gruskin after the match. "So I just had to calm myself down...and I was able to get into the points again."
Glozman's opponent in the round of 16 is 9-16 seed Thea Rabman of North Carolina, who defeated Andrea Beltran of Denver 7-5, 6-2.
Ozan Baris of Michigan State, who was the preseason No. 1 in the ITA singles rankings was not seeded this week, but he avenged his loss in the Battle of the Bay earlier this fall with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 win over No. 4 seed Carl Overbeck of Cal. Baris will play 9-16 seed Pedro Vives of TCU, wo beat Noah Zamora of UC Irvine 6-4, 6-4.
Below is the list of today's winners, all of whom are now All-Americans for the 2024-2025 season. Oliver Tarvet of San Diego and Maria Sholokova of Wisconsin, who both lost Tuesday, are also All-Americans as ITA All-America champions. A top 20 ranking at the end of the dual match season in May will also confer that status.
2024-2-25 All Americans:MEN:
Corey Craig, Florida State
DK Suresh, Wake Forest
*Michael Zheng, Columbia
Paul Inchauspe, Princeton
Thomas Paulsell, Georgia
Aidan Kim, Ohio State
Lui Maxted, TCU
Pedro Vives, TCU
*Ozan Baris, Michigan State
Kenta Miyoshi, Illinois
Timo Legout, Texas
Maxi Homberg, Pepperdine
Jay Friend, Arizona
Spencer Johnson, UCLA
*Colton Smith, Arizona
Only one seeded men's doubles team lost, 5-8 seeds Zsombor Velcz and Devin Badenhorst of Baylor, who were beaten by Aadarsh Tripathi and Alexander Hoogmartens of UCLA 6-3, 7-6(3).