NCAA D-I Roundtable Part II, Seeds Roll in Opening Round of NCAA Regional Play; Grant to Represent Italy; Kennedy Reaches First Pro Circuit Semifinal at M15 Orange Park; Osuigwe Makes W100 Bonita Springs Semis; Akli Through in Boca Raton

Forty-eight first round matches were played today on campuses across the country as the NCAA Division I Team Championships, which will culminate with the final three rounds in Waco Texas May 15-18.

The panelists for the Tennis Recruiting Network's annual D-I roundtable were asked to pick their champions in today's Part II, and in all my years participating in this exercise (and having very little success) I don't ever remember such a consensus. All five of us picked the Wake Forest men and four of the five chose the Georgia women, with one panelist picking the Texas A&M women to repeat. There are more diverse opinions when it comes to dark horses and upsets, so make sure you read those before the women's Sweet 16 are decided Saturday.

All 32 women's first round matches were played today, and all 16 seeds, who are No. 1 in their regions, posted 4-0 victories. There were three 4-3 matches between No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, with Wisconsin beating Clemson, UC-Santa Barbara beating Rice, and in the biggest shocker of the day, unranked Boise State taking down No. 22 Baylor. Three No. 3 seeds beat No. 2 seeds: Arizona State over Ole Miss, Boise State over Baylor and Illinois over Arizona. Below are today's results:

Women's top half:

*No. 1 Georgia[1] d. Florida A&M[4] 4-0

Georgia Tech[2] d. Iowa[3] 4-1

*No. 16 Washington[1] d. Stetson[4] 4-0

Cal[2] d. Sacramento State[3] 4-0

*No. 9 Auburn[1] d. South Carolina State[4] 4-0

Wisconsin[2] d. Clemson[3] 4-3

*No. 8 Duke[1] d. Bryant[4] 4-0

Florida Atlantic[2] d. Old Dominion[3] 4-1

*No. 5 North Carolina[1] d. VCU[4] 4-0

South Carolina[2] d. Kansas[3] 4-0

*No. 12 NC State[1] d. Charleston Southern[4] 4-0

Central Florida[2] d. Furman[3] 4-1

*No. 13 LSU[1] d. Stephen F Austin[4] 4-0

Southern California[2] d. Memphis[3] 4-0

*No. 4 Ohio State[1] d. Buffalo[4] 4-0

Notre Dame[2] d. Illinois-Chicago[3] 4-0

Women's bottom half: 

*No. 3 Michigan[1] d. Youngstown State[4] 4-0

 Arizona State[3] d. Ole Miss[2] 4-1

*No. 14 Texas[1] d. Grand Canyon[4] 4-0

Boise State[3] d. Baylor[2] 4-3

*No. 11 Texas Tech[1] d. Boston University[4] 4-0

Stanford[2] d. Florida Internatonal[3] 4-1

*No. 6 Oklahoma[1] d. Denver[4] 4-0

Oklahoma State[2] d. Tulsa[3] 4-0

*No. 7 Virginia[1] d. Fairleigh Dickinson[4] 4-0

Illinois[3] d. Arizona[2] 4-1

*No. 10 Tennessee[1] v Elon[4]

Pepperdine[2] d. Wake Forest[3] 4-1

*No. 15 Vanderbilt[1] d. Xavier[4] 4-0

UCLA[2] d. Harvard[3] 4-0

*No. 2 Texas A&M[1] d. Quinnipiac[4] 4-0

UC Santa Barbara[2] d.  Rice[3] 4-3

*host

The 16 men's first round matches also went to form, although two No. 1 seeds did drop points to the No. 4 seed in their region, with Cal[11] losing one to Boise State at line 5 singles and Wake Forest[1] losing their singles match at line 4 to Gardner Webb. Below are all the regional matches for men; those without scores are being played Saturday and Sunday.  There was just one men's 4-3 match, but it was a doozy, with Pepperdine beating Alabama at the Stanford regional via a third set tiebreaker at line 6.

Freshman David Fix trailed Alabama's Damien Nezar 5-2 in that tiebreaker, but won the final five points of the match for a 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(5) victory that put his team in the regional final Saturday. There were no 3 seeds over 2 seeds in today's men's matches.

Men's top half:

*No. 1 Wake Forest[1] d. Gardner Webb[4] 4-1

Kentucky[2] d. Old Dominion[3] 4-0

*No. 16 Texas A&M[1] v Rice[4]

Baylor[2] v Nebraska[3]

*No. 9 NC State[1] v South Carolina State[4]

Georgia[2] v UNC-Wilmington[3]

*No. 8 Columbia[1] d. Binghamton[4] 4-0

Clemson[2] d. Quinnipiac[3] 4-0

*No. 5 Ohio State[1] v Buffalo[4]

Auburn[2] v Belmont[3]

*No. 12 Mississippi State[1] d. New Orleans[4] 4-0

Michigan State[2] d. North Alabama[3] 4-0

*No. 13 South Carolina[1] d. VCU[4] 4-0

Florida State[2] d, Samford[3] 4-0

*No. 4 Stanford[1] d. New Mexico[4] 4-0

Pepperdine[2] d. Alabama[3] 4-3

Men's bottom half:

*No. 3 Texas[1] v Montana[4]

Michigan[2] v Cornell[3]

*No. 14 Tennessee[1] v Alabama State[4]

Duke[2] v Middle Tennessee State[3]

*No. 11 Cal[1] d. Boise State[4] 4-1

UCLA[2] d. UC Santa Barbara[3] 4-0

*No. 6 San Diego[1] v UC-Irvine[4]

Southern Cal[2] v Arizona State[3]

*No. 7 Virginia[1] v Bucknell[4]

Princeton[2] v St. John's[3]

*No 10 Arizona[1] d. Denver[4] 4-0

Harvard[2] d. Washington[3] 4-0

*No. 15 Central Florida[1] v Miami[4]

South Florida[2] v Florida[3]

*No. 2 TCU[1] d. Abilene Christian[4] 4-0

Oklahoma[2] d. Illinois[3] 4-0

*host

The men's draw is here, the women's draw is here. Times and links to live scoring and live streaming can be found at collegetennisranks.com. Cracked Racquets is providing Cross Court coverage on four streams at their YouTube channel.

An article from the Athletic yesterday provided the news that Tyra Grant, who led the USA's Junior Billie Jean Cup team to the title last November, will be representing Italy as soon as next week. The 17-year-old, whose father is American and whose mother is Italian, has split her time between the two countries, and when she left the USTA's Player Development program and returned to Europe to train, switching her nationality became a possibility. She has received a main draw wild card into the Italian Open next week. Lots more details in the article.

Jack Kennedy reached his first USTA Pro Circuit quarterfinal last week at the M15 in Vero Beach Florida and in this week's M15 in Orange Park the 16-year-old New Yorker has advanced to his first semifinal. Kennedy defeated fellow junior reserved entrant Benjamin Willwerth  6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in today's quarterfinal; Kennedy is now 3-0, including two 2024 junior meetings, against Australian Open boys finalist Willwerth, who made his first USTA Pro Circuit semifinal last November in Boca Raton. 

Kennedy will face No. 6 seed Tristan McCormick(Notre Dame, Georgia) in the top half semifinal, while No. 2 seed Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) will play unseeded Tomas Luis(Belmont) of Portugal in the bottom half.

No. 4 seed Whitney Osuigwe will face unseeded Elvina Kalieva in the semifinals of the USTA Pro Circuit W100 in Bonita Springs Florida Saturday, after she defeated unseeded Anna Rogers(NC State) 6-0, 6-2 today, keeping her hopes alive for the USTA's Roland Garros wild card. Osuigwe needs to take the title to pass Iva Jovic, the current leader in the standings.

Qualifier Katarina Jokic of Serbia, who beat Jovic in the second round, advanced to the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-2 win over No. 6 seed Laura Pigossi of Brazil. Jokic plays No. 8 seed Astra Sharma of Australia, who was a senior at Vanderbilt when Jokic was a freshman at Georgia in 2017-18. Jokic went on to reach the NCAA singles final in 2019.

Ayana Akli has continued to post impressive results the past several weeks on the USTA Pro Circuit. After reaching the final last week at the W35 in Charlotte NC, the 23-year-old from Maryland is through to the semifinals at the W35 in Boca Raton this week. The former All-American at South Carolina, who is in her first year on the Pro Circuit, defeated qualifier Dana Guzman(Oklahoma) of Peru 6-1, 6-3 and will play No. 6 seed Luisina GIovannini of Argentina, who beat Fiona Crawley(UNC) 6-4, 7-6(2). Akli is also through to the doubles final, with partner Diae El Jardi(Rice) of Morocco.