by Bobby Knight | Mar 10, 2019 | Blog
Saturday was a busy day across the Pac-12 with 8 of the 9 men’s schools in action while there were 4 in action on the women’s side. On the men’s side #7/#6 Stanford and Cal finished off weekend sweeps of #21 Arizona and Arizona State. Stanford won a top 25 showdown over Arizona in convincing fashion with the Cardinal winning every completed set in singles. Cal came back from 2-0 down with four straight set wins in singles to defeat Arizona State 4-2. #12/#21 Oregon overcame a slow start at home to defeat Washington 5-1. The Ducks dropped the doubles point but won a lot of close first sets and used that as a springboard to collect four...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 9, 2019 | Blog
The two biggest upsets of the day on Friday took place between Alabama and Kentucky. The Kentucky men clawed past ITA #17/USTA #24 Alabama 5-2 in Lexington. The Wildcats took the doubles point with a 6-2 win at No. 2 and a 6-3 win at No. 3 and then won the first four singles matches to finish with the wins at No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 coming in straight sets. “We had a big team meeting last week about the standards and the culture that we had to set heading into the SEC season,” said Kentucky volunteer assistant coach Mark Goldberg. “I think this was a big one, protecting our home, setting our standards high. We came out, took care of our...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 8, 2019 | Blog
Thursday night brought us a pair of close matches in the SEC with Texas A&M and Tennessee pulling out hard fought 4-3 wins. In College Station, Texas A&M fell behind after dropping the doubles point but the Aggies rallied with four opening sets in singles. Juan Carlos Aguilar tied the match at 1-1 with a 6-0, 6-1 rout at No. 1 but Georgia’s Jan Zielinski put the Bulldogs back in front with a 7-6, 6-3 win at No. 2. Texas A&M’s Valentin Vacherot evened the match at 2-2 after a 7-6, 6-3 win at No. 3 but Georgia was still leading on two of the remaining courts with the third about to split sets. Texas A&M freshman Noah Schachter...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 6, 2019 | Blog
Wednesday afternoon brought us a top 3 showdown on the women’s side with North Carolina hosting rival Duke. The Tar Heels, ranked No. 1 by the ITA and No. 2 by the USTA, jumped out to the early 1-0 lead on #3/#4 Duke after rolling to 6-2 win at both No. 1 and No. 3 doubles. UNC added four opening sets in singles however the first match to finish came at No. 6 with Duke’s Ellyse Hamlin winning convincingly 6-0, 6-1. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils that’d be the only point they’d muster because UNC’s Sara Daavettila would make it 2-1 with a 6-4, 6-0 win at No. 3 and Cameron Morra would up the lead to 3-1 with a 6-2, 7-5 win...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 4, 2019 | Blog
Sunday was an exciting day with several close matches coming down to the wire and many of them took place in the Southeast. Texas A&M (NR/#24) isn’t accustomed to being unranked in the ITA rankings at this point in the season but after Sunday’s win at #20/#25 Alabama the Aggies will be back in the ITA Top 50 by Tuesday. The Aggies jumped out to the early 1-0 lead with doubles wins at No. 1 and No. 2 and then the teams split opening sets in singles. Texas A&M’s Valentin Vacherot extended the lead to 2-0 with a straight set win at No. 3 but Alabama answered with straight set wins from Mazen Osama and Jeremy Gschwendtner at No....
by Bobby Knight | Mar 3, 2019 | Blog
There wasn’t a huge schedule on Saturday and it was made even smaller courtesy of the rain. The highly anticipated top 10 women’s showdown between Texas and Stanford was washed out as were matches between Arizona/UCSB (M), Cal Poly/Santa Clara (M), UCSB/Cal (W), the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships, and just about every other match scheduled in the state of California. There was a unique match on Saturday in Houston between No. 45 Denver and Minnesota. Both teams were led by a Thompson with Christian the head coach of Denver and her twin sister Catrina the head coach of Minnesota. Christian’s Pioneers won the match 6-1 after taking...
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