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Thursday, November 21, 2024

Virginia's Chervinsky Shocks Top Seed Stoiana, Legout Ousts No. 3 Seed Smith at NCAA Division I Championships; Men's D-I Fall Signing Update; USA Falls in Davis Cup Quarterfinals

Texas A&M senior Mary Stoiana led the Aggies to their first NCAA team title in May, but she will not win an NCAA individual title in during her storied collegiate career, after the top seed lost in today's NCAA Division I Championships round of 16 to unseeded Elaine Chervinsky of Virginia 6-3, 6-0.

Stoiana could not find her form today at the Hurd Tennis Center on the Baylor campus, and Chervinsky, also a senior, avoided the temptation to overplay, which is tempting when faced with Stoiana's variety.

"I came out really well," Chervinsky told Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin after the match. "I know Mary is one of the best athletes in college tennis, so I knew I had to come out and fight for every point. I think I did a good job with my first serve percentage, was sticking with my game plan and being really disciplined."

Chervinsky said she did not know who her opponent would be today until after she had savored her 6-3, 7-5 victory over Stanford's Alexis Blokhina in Wednesday's second round. 

"I'm not one to look at the draw, so it was a very nice surprise," Chervinsky said. "Yesterday I was in a very good mood, had a very good match, so I was kind of riding that a little bit. But at dinner time, it was time to think about the game plan. I have a lot of respect for Mary, I've seen her do great things over the years, but I also know it's my last year, so let's leave it all out there and let's have some fun with it."

Chervinsky will face unseeded DJ Bennett of Auburn, who defeated Cal's Katja Wiersholm 7-6(5), 6-3.

The third unseeded player to advance to the quarterfinals in the women's draw is Stoiana's teammate Nicole Khirin, who defeated No. 6 seed Connie Ma of Stanford 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-3.  Khirin, a junior, clinched the team title for Texas A&M in May, and is one of the few collegiate players who can overpower Ma. Khirin will play No. 2 seed Dasha Vidmanova of Georgia, who defeated No. 9 seed Savannah Broadus of Pepperdine 6-2, 6-3.

An all-Big Ten battle will take place in the other quarterfinal in the bottom half, with Michigan's Julia Fliegner, the No. 7 seed, playing Ohio State's Luciana Perry, a No. 9 seed. Fliegner defeated unseeded Ozlem Uslu of Virginia Tech 6-2, 6-4, while Perry also had an emphatic win over North Carolina's Carson Tanguilig 6-2, 6-3.

The only freshman remaining in the women's draw is No. 5 seed Valerie Glozman of Stanford, who defeated North Carolina sophomore Thea Rabman, a No. 9 seed, 6-4, 6-2. Glozman is hoping to celebrate her 18th birthday Friday with a trip to the semifinals when she faces Oklahoma's Julia Garcia Ruiz, a No. 9 seed. Garcia Ruiz defeated the other freshman in the women's draw, Auburn's Merna Refaat, 7-5, 6-3.

The men's quarterfinals feature two of the eight players who advanced to the semifinals in Stillwater in May: singles finalist Michael Zheng of Columbia, the No. 2 seed, and unseeded Ozan Baris of Michigan State.

Zheng got off to a slow start against Georgia's Thomas Paulsell, a No. 9 seed, but came back for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory. Baris was also down early, to No. 9 seed Pedro Vives of TCU, before recording a 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 win.  Zheng's opponent Friday will be No. 6 seed Lui Maxted of TCU, who beat unseeded Maxi Homberg of Pepperdine 6-2, 7-5; Baris will play Arizona's Jay Friend, who defeated Shunsuke Mitsui of Tennessee, a No. 9 seed, 7-5, 6-4. 

In the top quarter, Corey Craig of Florida State defeated unseeded Paul Inchauspe of Princeton 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to set up a quarterfinal meeting with fellow No. 9 seed DK Suresh of Wake Forest. Aidan Kim of Ohio State, the No. 8 seed, served for the match at 6-4, 5-4, but Suresh broke, won the tiebreaker and rode his big serve to a 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-3 victory.


The third No. 9 seed in the quarterfinals is Texas's Timo Legout, who defeated one of the pre-tournament favorites Colton Smith of Arizona 6-3, 7-6(4).  Legout, a 22-year-old from France, who was cleared for competition this fall, was a magician in getting out of trouble, saving 13 consecutive break points at the end of the first set and the beginning of the second set before finally getting broken. Smith took a 5-2 lead in the second set, and had three sets points, but Legout saved all those to hold for 5-3, and Smith then double faulted at 30-40 to give back the break, and Legout played the better tiebreaker to earn the win.

Legout is still undefeated in his brief collegiate career, in both singles and doubles, going 22-0. Remarkably, all those wins have come at Baylor, where he swept the titles in the Regional Championships in October.

"Obviously a great win for me against a really, really good player," Legout told Alex Gruskin. "I said yesterday that I would need to raise my level to beat a player like Colton and that's what I did today, so I'm really, really proud of that. In that second set, I saved an insane amount of break points, down 0-40, 15-40 twice, at 2-5 15-40. With the deuce points, you get chances, maybe a little more than usual, to break back and I was just thinking to stay alive on my serve. He was getting a little big tight because he had so many chances to close that second set and he didn't."

Legout will attempt to extend his Baylor winning streak to 23 tomorrow in the quarterfinals against unseeded Spencer Johnson of UCLA, who defeated unseeded Kenta Miyoshi of Illinois 6-3, 6-4. 

Today was All-American day for doubles, and it was certainly and eventful second round, with both top seeds losing in straight sets. Men's ITA All-American champions Oliver Tarvet and Stian Klaassen of San Diego lost to Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay of Michigan 6-4, 6-0 and women's ITA All-American finalists Elise Wagle and Kimmi Hance lost to Florida's Alicia Dudney and Rachel Gailis 6-4, 6-3.

Tarvet and Klaassen and Wagle and Hance did secure their All-America status by winning the titles at the A-A. The third method of achieving that accolade is finishing Top 10 in the final ITA rankings at the end of the 2024-2025 season.

Division I Doubles All-Americans:
Alicia Dudeney and Rachel Gailis, Florida
Irina Balus and Ellie Coleman, Duke
Carson Tanguilig and Susanna Maltby, North Carolina
Ava Hrastar and DJ Bennett, Auburn
Elaine Chervinsky and Melodie Collard, Virginia
Jade Otway and Isabel Pascual, TCU
Kate Fakih and Olivia Center, UCLA
Gabriella Broadfoot and Maddy Zampardo, NC State

Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay, Michigan
Aadarsh Tripathi and Alexander Hoogmartens, UCLA
Luciano Tacchi and Luca Pow, Wake Forest
Youcef Rihane and Alex Bulte, Florida State
Pedro Vives and Lui Maxted, TCU
Petar Jovanovic and Benito Sanchez Martinez, Mississippi State
Bryce Nakashima and Will Jansen, Ohio State
Timo Legout and Lucas Brown, Texas

All eight quarterfinals will begin at 10 a.m. Central Friday. Cracked Racquets coverage is available at ESPN+. Live scoring and results are available at ioncourt.

As promised, here is the signing update for Division I men. My women's list was posted on Wednesday.

Alabama signs Matic Kriznik of Slovenia, Vit Kalina of Czech Republic and Brendan Loh of Australia:

Arkansas signs JUCO transfer Jean-Baptiste Badon and Elicha Navas of Spain:

Auburn signs Amirkhamza Nasridinov of Russia:




Central Florida signs Pedro Rodrigues of Brazil: 

Duke signs Dylan Long: 

Florida signs Niels Villard of France and Rafael Segado of Spain:

Georgia signs Noah Johnston:

Illinois signs David Bakonyi of Hungary and Adam Jilly of Hungary:

Indiana signs Adryan Badlani:

Kentucky signs Nicolas and Mikael Arseneault of Canada:




Nebraska signs Niels Van Der Sijs of the Netherlands: https://huskers.com/news/2024/11/21/huskers-add-niels-van-der-sijs

North Carolina signs Ian Mayew, Oliver Tarbut and Kase Schinnerer: https://goheels.com/news/2024/11/14/mens-tennis-signs-three-top-prospects





Texas Tech signs Thiago Guglieri of Brazil and Ludovico Vaccari of Italy: https://texastech.com/news/2024/11/13/mens-tennis-guglieri-vaccari-sign-with-red-raiders



The Davis Cup quarterfinals began this week in Spain, with the imminent retirement of Rafael Nadal overshadowing any of the competitive tennis on tap. After Spain lost 2-1 to the Netherlands, putting an abrupt halt to what might have been a much longer celebration of Nadal's career, the air seemed to go out of the event. For Americans, it feels even more deflating now, after today's 2-1 loss to Australia.  Ben Shelton(Florida) lost 6-1, 4-6, 7-6(14) to Thanasi Kokkinakis at No. 2 singles before Taylor Fritz brought the United States even with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Alex de Minaur at No. 1 singles. That meant the doubles would decide the winner, and captain Bob Bryan elected to pull Olympic silver medalists Rajeev Ram(Illinois) and Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) in favor of Shelton and Tommy Paul, who lost to Matthew Ebden and Jordan Thompson 6-4, 6-4.

For more on today's loss, see this article from usta.com.

Posted by Colette Lewis at 9:39 PM

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