by Bobby Knight | May 21, 2021 | Blog
It’ll be an SEC versus Big 12 kind of day on Friday after a pair of schools from those two conferences advanced to the NCAA Semifinals. By far and away the thriller of the day was the showdown between defending national champion No. 4 Texas and Pac-12 Tournament Champion No. 12 USC. Going into Thursday’s matches, Texas was the only team that had managed to come back after dropping the doubles point but the Horns knew they didn’t want to attempt that feat again against a deep USC’s singles lineup. USC got off to a good start in doubles and went up early breaks on 1 and 2 while the match at 3 stayed on serve. USC’s Bradley Frye and...
by Bobby Knight | May 20, 2021 | Uncategorized
For the third consecutive season it’ll be a Columbus State/Barry final on the men’s side after both teams advanced with impressive victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Top ranked Columbus State, which won its first-ever title in 2018 (in Surprise, AZ) with a 5-4 win over Barry, extended its winning streak to 32 matches after shutout wins over #29 Cameron and #6 Hawaii Hilo. In the quarterfinals against Cameron, the Cougars won the doubles point going away and then added quick straight set wins in singles from Tommaso Schold, Javier Cueto Ramos, and Justin Welz at 3, 4, and 6. CSU was also leading on each of the three other courts that...
by Bobby Knight | May 20, 2021 | Uncategorized
The women came to play on a windy Wednesday in Orlando with two of the top four seeds getting sent home early while the top two seeds managed to avoid the upset bug. The match of the day came in the late afternoon block as No 4 UCLA and No. 5 Pepperdine squared off for the fourth time this season. UCLA had won two of the previous three meetings, while winning the doubles point quite handily in each of those three matches, but it’d be the doubles point that would ultimately be the Bruins undoing on Wednesday. All three doubles courts were seesaw affairs with no lead safe. Pepperdine’s Shiori Fakuda and Taisiya Pachkaleva jumped out to a 4-1 lead at...
by Bobby Knight | May 18, 2021 | Uncategorized
The quarterfinals are upon us with the top 5 seeds still alive in the women’s draw while the men still have the top 4 seeds remaining. The feature matchup on Wednesday will be the fourth meeting of the season between No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 Pepperdine. The Bruins took two of the previous three and in the one they dropped they had a pair of starters that sat out. NC State is making its first appearance in the quarterfinals and will try to hand Georgia just its second defeat of the season while the Bulldogs are trying to get back to the semifinals for the second year in a row. Florida State has never been past the quarterfinals and if this is the year it...
by Bobby Knight | May 18, 2021 | Uncategorized
What a thrilling day of action it was on Monday with three of the eight men’s Round of 16 matches finishing with a 4-3 final score. Two of the top eight national seeds went down and a third came back from 3-0 down to escape. The morning session brought us two of the 4-3 matches with a pair of SEC teams moving on – one was expected to win while the other was not. Georgia, seeded No. 11, entered the match against No. 6 North Carolina as fairly heavy underdogs but a big win in doubles helped set the tone for the rest of the match. North Carolina’s William Blumberg and Brian Cernoch rolled to a 6-1 win at No. 1 doubles while Georgia’s...
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