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UCLANothing like a little mid-week tennis to get everybody excited and that’s what we’ll have Tuesday evening with #5 Baylor hosting #15 TCU and #21 UCLA hosting #51 Tulsa.
#15 TCU (8-3) at #5 Baylor (9-2) – 7pm est – Live Scoring & Blog + Video (if played outdoors) – This will be the Big 12 opener for both schools with Baylor fresh off a win over Virginia while TCU swept a pair of matches on Sunday against Wisconsin and Incarnate Word. TCU started off the year with 5 straight wins including wins over Texas A&M and LSU but then got swept at the National Indoors by Duke, Virginia, and UCLA. Baylor lost its opener at home to Illinois but since then they’ve beaten Tulsa, Duke, UCLA, and Virginia twice with just the 1 other loss to Oklahoma at the National Indoors semifinals. Baylor is a perfect 11-0 in doubles and has only dropped 3 individual courts while TCU is just 4-5 so I can’t see anyway that Baylor doesn’t win this point. TCU has used 7 different guys in singles with Trevor Johnson (13.38) also seeing plenty of action at 6 so it’s possible he could play at 6 if either Dachs or Lugones can’t play. Diego Galeano has sat out the singles portion for the last 2 matches so it sounds like he isn’t 100% so with the way the other guys have been playing I’d be surprised to see him singles in this one. FYI, the # beside the player’s school is the player’s Universal Tennis Rating as of the current date of this preview/recap. For more details about UTR check out their website.
Projected Singles Lineup
1. #28 Cameron Norrie (TCU 14.66) vs. #11 Julian Lenz (BU 14.69)
2. #48 Nick Chappell (TCU 13.81) vs. #23 Tony Lupieri (BU 14.32)
3. Arnau Dachs (TCU 13.99) vs. #40 Max Tchoutakian (BU 14.22)
4. Will Stein (TCU 13.28) vs. Vince Schneider (BU 13.46)
5. Guillermo Nunez (TCU 13.53) vs. Mate Zsiga (BU 13.82)
6. Facundo Lugones (TCU 13.49) vs. Felipe Rios (BU 13.62)
#1 singles – Julian Lenz has jumped out to a 7-1 start in dual match play with 6 top 75 wins while Cameron Norrie is 6-3 but just 1-3 against ranked opponents. Anything other than a Lenz win would be very surprising.
#2 singles – Tony Lupieri is 5-3 in dual match play including a win over current #1 Thai Son Kwiatkowski but since that win he is 0-2 with losses to Mitchell Frank and Dane Webb. Nick Chappel is 4-2 in dual play and 1-2 against ranked opponents with 3 other matches that didn’t finish. I think Chappell pulls the mild upset and takes this one in 3 if they play the matches out after the clinch.
#3 singles – Max Tchoutakian is 5-4 in dual match play but just 1-3 against ranked opponents while Arnau Dachs is 5-2 in dual match play but has dropped 2 of his last 3. Dachs sat out a few matches and had a close one against Wisconsin yesterday so he may not be 100%. I like Tchoutakian in straights against either Dachs or Stein.
#4 singles – Will Stein is 4-3 in dual match play but has dropped 2 of his last 3 while Schneider is 6-1 and 3-0 since moving up to #4 with wins over UCLA’s Karue Sell and Virginia’s Mac Styslinger. I think Schneider has the hotter hand right now but Stein is more than capable of winning.
#5 singles – Guillermo Nunez is 7-0 seeing action at 3, 4, 5, and 6 though none of those wins were against a ranked opponent while the up and down Mate Zsiga is 4-2 with 4 other matches that didn’t finish (he was up big in 3 of those). Zsiga either wins his matches in under a hour or they go closer to 2+ hours and go 3 sets and if he hadn’t squandered the big lead against Ghilea in the NTI semis he’d be riding a 5 match winning streak. Right now there is no way I can pick against Mate especially with it being at home so I’ll go Zsiga in 2.
#6 singles – Felipe Rios is 6-1 in dual match play and has won 6 straight since dropping his 1st collegiate dual match against Illinois’s Ross Guignon while Facundo Lugones is 4-2 though he’s lost his last 2 against tougher competition (UCLA’s Karue Sell & LSU’s Boris Arias). If Trevor Johnson gets the call at 6 he’d bring a 5-1 dual match record into the match. Ultimately I’d like Rios over both those guys.
It’s possible Baylor could have a little bit of an emotional letdown after the big win over Virginia but it’d take a really big effort from TCU to pull the upset. I’d say TCU’s best chance would be to get wins from Chappell, Stein, Nunez, and whoever plays at 6. A few of those guys may win but I don’t see all 4 getting it done. Prediction: Baylor 5-2
#51 Tulsa (10-6) at #21 UCLA (7-5) – 5pm est – Live Scoring – Tulsa has brought a Golden Hurricane down on each of its past 2 west coast victims with neither #1 USC or #53 Pepperdine able to overcome the Tulsa firepower. UCLA, which had lost 3 of 4, finally stopped the bleeding with a nice 4-2 win on Saturday over an improving Stanford team. UCLA is 9-3 in doubles while Tulsa is 9-6. Tulsa has played in 5 consecutive matches that have finished with a 4-3 score – winning 3 of the 5.
One of UCLA’s biggest issues has been getting it’s 6 most talented guys on the court at the same time. Gage Brymer, who was a rock last year as a freshman going 18-3 playing primarily at #4, has struggled this year and has only played in 5 of UCLA’s 12 matches. Brymer suffered a personal tragedy when his mother passed away in late January and has had trouble finding his form since then and actually pulled himself out of the starting lineup due to his level of play at the National Indoors after dropping his match against North Carolina’s Oystein Steiro. I guess at this point only Gage knows when he’ll be ready to return to the court. Joseph Di Giulio is another Bruin that’s had trouble finding his form this year. Last year Di Giulio went 9-3 playing at #6, with a slew of matches that didn’t finish, but so far this year he’s just 2-5 appearing in 9 of UCLA’s 12 matches. If UCLA can get those 2 guys back and playing at last year’s form they’ll be a tough 2 seed in someone’s regional come in May.
Projected Singles Lineups:
1. #71 Or Ram-Harel (TU 13.24) vs. #3 Mackenzie McDonald (UCLA 14.87)
2. Alejandro Espejo (TU 13.67) vs. #35 Dennis Mkrtchian (UCLA 13.50)
3. Juan Gonzalez (TU 13.44)vs. Martin Redlicki (UCLA 14.23)
4. Matthew Kirby (TU 12.88) vs. Karue Sell (UCLA 14.03)
5. Mitchell Pritchard (TU 12.51) vs. Austin Rapp (UCLA 12.91)
6. Dylan McCloskey (TU 12.59) vs. Ryoto Tachi (UCLA 13.06)
Other possible singles additions: Gage Brymer (UCLA 13.82), Joseph DiGiulio (UCLA 13.50), Carlos Bautista (TU 12.71).
#1 singles – Or Ram-Harel is 8-2 in dual match play with 3 wins over ranked opponents including the stunner on Friday over #6 Yannick Hanfmann while Mackenzie McDonald is 8-1 with 6 wins over ranked opponents. While Ram-Harel caught Hanfmann on the right day he won’t catch McDonald and the Bruins sophomore wins this in 2.
#2 singles – Espejo is 6-4 with his only ranked win coming over Roberto Quiroz while Mkrtchian is just 3-4 with 2 ranked wins and with 4 additional matches not finishing. Mkrtchian took a medical timeout during his match against Stanford due to flu symptoms but he was able to continue though the result wasn’t too good. I’m assuming that Mkrtchian still won’t be at 100% and will likely come up short in this one -Espejo in 2.
#3 singles – Gonzalez is 0-6 on the year having played 2 matches each at 1, 2, and 3 while Redlicki is 8-1 with notable wins over Brett Clark and David Wilczynski. Gonzalez didn’t play against USC but did play against Pepperdine losing 6-4 in the 3rd. I like Redlicki in 3.
#4 singles – Kirby is 7-4 with notable wins over Herkko Pollanen and Diego Galeano but has dropped 3 straight while Sell is 7-4 but he’s lost 3 of his last 5. 6 of Sell’s 7 wins have come in straight sets so I say he makes it 7 of 8.
#5 singles – Pritchard was the hero of the USC match by winning the clincher and is now 9-5 however he got blown out on Sunday by Pepperdine’s Pedro Iamachkine 6-1, 6-1. Rapp is 3-3 with 4 additional matches that didn’t finish. I’ll go with the Tulsa freshman in this one.
#6 singles – McCloskey is 6-4 on the year splitting his last 4 matches while Tachi has seen action in just 3 matches going 2-0 including a come from behind win on Saturday over Stanford’s David Hsu. I’ll go with Tachi in 3 in this one.
The one thing that you can be assured of is that Tulsa won’t catch UCLA sleeping but after 2 tough matches in the last few days the question is how much does Tulsa have left in the tank. The doubles point could be the turning point in this one because if Tulsa can take it I could easily see them picking up 3 points in singles especially if Mkrtchian isn’t 100% and neither Brymer or Di Giulio play. However I do see the Bruins grabbing the doubles point and then picking up wins at 1, 3, and 4. If they play it out after the clinch I think it’d finish 5-2. Prediction: UCLA 4-1
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