Columbia's Zheng and Georgia's Vidmanova Claim NCAA D-I Singles Titles, Virginia and TCU Capture Doubles Championships; Americans Basavareddy, Osuigwe, Ngounoue, Dostanic and Milavsky Claim Pro Titles
A week of generally excellent weather came to a close today in Waco, with less than ideal conditions, with 20 mph winds making the finals of the NCAA Division I Individual Championships an adventure for all the participants. It was the No. 2 seeds who handled that challenge better in the singles championships, with Columbia's Michael Zheng claiming the men's title with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 win over Michigan State's Ozan Baris, and Georgia's Dasha Vidmanova earning a second NCAA career title with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Auburn's DJ Bennett.
Zheng, who reached the men's single final in May, got off to a quick start in the match, and although he gave his first break back, he immediately got another one and held for a 4-2 lead. Another break, on a deciding point, gave Zheng a chance to serve out the set, and while the game was close, as most of them were in the set, Zheng took the set 6-2.
After six holds to start the second set, Zheng got a break, but that advantage didn't last long, with Baris breaking back and holding for 5-4, then tracking down a forehand volley on a deciding point in Zheng's service game. Zheng was standing at the net to pick off Baris's excellent backhand pass, but he netted his forehand volley, and suddenly the match was even.
"I thought I had it once I went up that break in the second," said the 20-year-old junior from New Jersey, speaking with Alex Gruskin of Cracked Racquets. "Credit to him and his team, they changed it up a little bit. He was going for a little bit too much, and in these windy conditions and it's tough when the ball isn't in the perfect strike zone. He was giving me a lot of free points from his forehand side, and then he started grinding a little bit, making a lot balls. I felt a little more pressure to go for it and I started making a few more errors."
An unpleasant flashback from May's final, when Zheng won the first set, but lost the match to Alabama's Filip Planinsek 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-2, surfaced after that set point.
"I kind of felt my stomach drop after missing that volley," Zheng said. "I was like, oh my god, no way, did I blow it again? But I just reset. I knew it was going to be a tough match today, I knew he wanted really bad and was going to come out and give it his best, so I was going to do the same, make this third set as tough as possible."
Zheng opened with a break, but serving at 3-2, he had to save two break points, one with a big forehand and the deciding point with some aggressive net play. Zheng did try to move forward in the final set, and that proved pivotal in that game, with Baris broken at love in the next game and Zheng serving out the first championship in modern NCAA tennis history for Columbia.
"It's just a huge honor to represent Columbia," Zheng said. "The community is like family, everyone's supporting you, I got so many text messages after the match. Doing it for (head coach) Howie(Endelman), the Columbia community and all the people supporting me back home, it's honestly amazing, a huge honor."
Zheng won't have long to celebrate, as he will head to France next week to compete in the Master'U BNP Paribas world collegiate team competition for the United States.
Baris, who was unseeded this week despite his semifinal appearance in the May championships, said his disappointment stemmed from not delivering a first title to Michigan State.
"Here I was just playing to win the first national championship for myself, but mostly for Michigan State, said the 20-year-old junior from Michigan. "So that's kind of the heartbreak. It just feels different. I'm not going to beat myself anymore, losing is already tough, it's not the most fun part of the sport. But playing out there was fun, and being in those situations are the situations I want to be in."
While a program first was going to be achieved no matter who won the men's title, the women's final had a different atmosphere, with Vidmanova looking to add a singles title to the doubles championship she won in May. The unseeded Bennett, on the other hand, was a surprise finalist, and the first player from Auburn to advance to the NCAA singles final.
In her semifinal win over Oklahoma's Julia Garcia Ruiz, Bennett had played a near-perfect opening set of power tennis, but the conditions were not conducive to that Sunday, and she struggled to take advantage of the opportunities that she had against Vidmanova. After getting a break and holding for a 4-1 lead, Vidmanova had to save three break points in each of her next two service games, but she navigated that with her unexpected combination of offense and defense given her height.
One of the break points Vidmanova saved was controversial, as she appeared to touch the net after running up to a get the ball. She got the ball back for a winner, but the stream showed her feet touching the net after she hit it, but well before it had bounced twice. No call was made by the chair, and no objection voiced by Auburn, but it was an oversight hard to fathom from what I saw on the stream.
In the second set, Vidmanova got an early break, won a deciding point to keep her lead at 3-1, then broke and held to put the match out of reach. Bennett was finally able to earn a break with Vidmanova serving for the match at 5-2, but she broke Bennett to earn the title, the fourth in Georgia history and first since Chelsey Gullickson was the champion in 2010.
Vidmanova's fall season, a combination of Pro Circuit and collegiate events, prepared her for this run to the title.
"I felt very confident, I think I had a stretch of pro tournaments that I played before going into this," said the senior from the Czech Republic, who is currently 331 in the WTA rankings. "It was a little bit of different pressure from the pros, but I felt confident in my game, knew what I wanted it to look like and for the most part I did what I wanted."
Vidmanova is one of five women to win both the NCAA singles and NCAA doubles titles in their careers, and will now set her sights on the team championship in May.
"It means a lot," Vidmanova said of her two titles in the last six months. "Winning doubles last year(May of 2024), singles was definitely one of the goals for this year. I'm really happy to achieve it for myself, and for Georgia, I know it means a lot. Last year we made the finals and lost to Texas A&M so I think we're all very motivated and committed to doing it again, making it to the finals and getting one more title."
Bennett is still trying to process the run she put together this week, after starting the fall season No. 32 in the ITA rankings. Last winter, Auburn's head coach was fired at the beginning of the dual match season and with graduation losses, Bennett had to adjust to new teammates and new coaches.
"It was an insane run," said the 21-year-old junior from Florida. "I did believe in myself that I could get this far, I did believe I could win the tournament, but I never thought it would happen, honestly. Especially where I came from, the year that I had, struggling in the NCAA tournament last year, it was a really great turnaround, with (coaches) Jordan(Szabo) and Pete(Francis), all our new staff, yeah, I'm really grateful for all of them."
Bennett is already looking forward to the spring season.
"I'm super excited for season, the results we had from the team here, three of us making it to the singles and me and my partner making it in doubles," Bennett said. "It's really promising for our lineup and I think it should give the other girls back home confidence that even with so many new people on the team, we're still going to be really good."
The doubles finals both were decided in match tiebreakers, with TCU's Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives taking the men's title and Elaine Chervinsky and Melodie Collard claiming the women's title.
Maxted and Vives, a No. 5 seed, defeated the unseeded Michigan team of Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay 6-3, 6-7(6), 10-2 to become the second TCU team to claim an NCAA men's doubles title.
The unseeded team of Chervinsky and Collard defeated UCLA freshmen Kate Fakih and Olivia Center, a No. 5 seed, 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 to claim Virginia's first women's doubles title.
Maxted and Vives were able to make their one break hold up in the first set, but after going up 4-3 in the second set, Maxted was broken, and they could not convert, on Young's serve at 5-6 in the subsequent tiebreaker, on their match point. Maxted double faulted on set point to send the match to the tiebreaker, but a bathroom break helped the team reset.
"Pedro calmed me down a little bit, saying it's just a doubles match at the end of day," said Maxted, a senior from Great Britain. "A quick five-minute break and we just came out with a lot of energy and tried to get off to a good start in the tiebreak."
With the tiebreaker at 4-2 in their favor at the first change of ends, TCU was relentless, taking the final six points of the championship match.
Vives and Maxted were well aware that the last NCAA individual title for the Horned Frogs came in 1981.
"It means the world to us," said Vives, a senior from Spain. "The last person to win it was Karl Richter and David Pate. We actually get to see Karl every day because he helps (head coach David) Roditi with the academy back in Fort Worth. So it's going to be pretty funny to see him every day and remind him he's not the only one to have that trophy."
Chervinsky and Collard won every one of their five matches in a match tiebreaker, and despite an excellent first set from Fakih and Center, they began to find their form down 5-1 in the first set, winning three straight games before Fakih closed out the set.
"We were really glad to have ended the first set like that even though we lost, said Chervinsky, a senior from Florida. "We had good momentum, fought back really well and had a good game plan, so at least we were not on our back foot starting the second set and I think that really showed."
Once they won the second set and got to the tiebreaker, Chervinsky and Collard had found their form and once they built a 4-0 lead, Center and Fakih could not find any momentum until it was too late.
"I don't think it's a mistake that we won five of them," said Collard, a senior from Canada. "We really put ourselves in a position to win all of the super tiebreakers. In every single match we got our things together to be ready for the super tiebreakers. At that moment, nothing matters but those ten points."
Although Virginia did not have an NCAA doubles title in their history, they did have inspirations, with head coach Sara (Anundsen) O'Leary winning the 2007 doubles title with Jenna Long at North Carolina, and the three NCAA singles titles claimed by Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro.
"I kind feel good to be with those names," said Collard. "Bringing this championship there, we were sitting there thinking are we really going to be with Emma Navarro and Danielle Collins? That's pretty cool."
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