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ITA Kick-Off Weekend Recap, On Wisconsin, Pac-12/SEC Challenge, TV Matches

by | Jan 29, 2016 | Blog | 2 comments

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It’s back to regular season action this week but if you missed out on last weekend’s ITA Kick-Off you can get caught up with my recap that I did for Tennis Recruiting.Net. There were lots of first-time qualifiers for the National Team Indoors and a lot of good stories over the weekend.

The best story so far this week is what’s going on up in Madison, Wisconsin. In the off-season the Badgers hired Danny Westerman (UW ’02) to replaced the departed Greg Van Emburgh and so far he has Wisconsin off a top a 2-0 start after upsetting #34 Princeton 4-3 on Wednesday night.

Last season Wisconsin struggled to a 7-18 finish, including 1-14 against ranked opponents, so it’s promising to see them pick up a ranked win this early in the season. Wisconsin took the doubles point by winning the deciding match in a tiebreak and you can see the team’s enthusiasm after getting the clincher. When you’re a team looking to get back on track getting out to an early lead is huge and Coach Westerman’s comments down below echo that sentiment.

Wisconsin 4, #34 Princeton 3

Jan. 27, 2016 – Madison, Wis. (Nielsen Tennis Center)
Singles
1. Josef Dodridge (UW 13.27) def. Thomas Colautti (Prin 13.40) 6-1, 6-3
2. Alexander Kokorev (UW 12.82) def. #93 Alexander Day (Prin 12.95) 6-4, 6-4
3. Diego Vives (Prin 13.20) def. Lamar Remy (UW 12.59) 6-3, 7-6
4. Joshua Yablon (Prin 12.97) def. Osgar O’Hoisin (UW 12.61) 4-6, 7-6 (5), 1-0 (10-7)
5. Darius Mackenzie (UW 12.09) def. Kial Kaiser (Prin 12.68) 6-2, 6-4
6. Jimmy Wasserman (Prin 12.96) def. Jose Carranzza (UW 11.97) 6-4, 7-6 (4)
 Doubles
1. Josef Dodridge/Lamar Remy def. Alexander Day/Luke Gamble, 6-2
2. Chema Carranza/Jakhongir Jalalov def. Diego Vives/Jimmy Wasserman, 7-6 (10-8)
3. Joshua Yablon/Thomas Colautti def. Alexander Kokorev/Darius Mackenzie, 7-5
Order of finish: Doubles: 1,3,2; Singles: 1,2,5,3,6,4
Comments from Wisconsin’s recap:
“This is a reward for all the work these guys have put in, Westerman said after the win. “I’m personally not surprised. These guys are playing really well in practice and it’s great to get something early to give them that belief that they belong with NCAA tournament teams.
  
“It’s way more than just the point, Westerman said of winning the doubles matches. “It’s momentum. You can go into the singles play with belief in your tennis, the court gets bigger and that energy just snowballs. Johnnie and Chema played to win at the end. We keep telling these guys to hit their best shots, believe in them, and go for it. We went out and took that breaker, which was great.
  
“Koko is playing like a senior and taking charge, Westerman said of Kokorev, who posted a 10-2 record in the fall. “He had a hard year physically and mentally last year but he had a great fall and is really carrying it over. This will do a lot for his confidence.
Comments from head coach Billy Pate via Princeton’s recap: 

“Tough loss to tonight to start the season. Wisconsin played well start to finish and we just didn’t quite get the momentum we needed. We missed on a couple of match points for the doubles point, and Wisconsin came up with some big serves in those situations. We didn’t get our best performance in a few spots in singles and we’ll need to be better on Friday. It’s always challenging in the first match of the year, but we can make those adjustments. We’ll travel back to NYC and expect a more gritty and resilient effort against Michigan.”

#6 Georgia and #20 Florida, which were the preseason #1 and #2 in the SEC, are heading out to Los Angeles this weekend to face #8 USC and #12 UCLA. There will be a pair of doubleheaders each day at UCLA with the opening match starting at 10am pacific and the second getting underway at 1pm pacific. This will be the third year of the event but it’s the first time that it hasn’t been held on the same weekend as the Super Bowl so maybe that will help with the crowds. I’m flying out to LA Friday night so I’ll be front and center for first serve on Saturday morning. I hope my new I-Phone is ready for the workload with all the video clips that I’ll be taking and I plan on during some Periscope feeds as well. I’ll have plenty of updates on Twitter throughout the weekend so give me a follow if you don’t already.

Michigan and #64 Iowa are heading to New York City to face #34 Princeton and #47 Cornell in the Big Ten/Ivy League Challenge. The matches will take place the USTA National Tennis Center which ended up hosting the Columbia Regional last weekend during the Kick-Off Weekend.

It’ll be a big weekend for #11 Wake Forest as they head to the Sooner State to face both #25 Oklahoma State and #2 Oklahoma. There will be live streaming available for both matches with the Wake/Oklahoma match also being broadcast on Fox Sports Oklahoma and Fox College Sports Central.

There will be 3 matches shown on ESPN3/WatchESPN on Friday with all 3 taking place in the state of Florida. The Miami (FL) men will play Central Florida at 10:30am while the #11 Miami (FL) women welcome in #24 Georgia Tech at 3:30pm eastern. The other match will take place up north in Tallahassee as #29 Florida State hosts #61 Alabama at 5pm eastern.

I updated my live scoring links page with a number of men’s matches along with a few of the top 25 women’s matches so don’t forget to follow along.

2 Comments

  1. 181
    181 on Thu March 19, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    Yeah that would suck for me – hopefully there is a window of no rain and maybe they can play them at the same time or earlier

    Reply
  2. 181
    181 on Thu March 19, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    Satuday's weather looks good in LA, but Sunday looks like a rainout.

    Reply

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