by Bobby Knight | May 14, 2019 | Blog
Friday will be the start of the NCAA Women’s Quarterfinals with the top 8 seeds making it to the Elite 8 for the first time since 2011. While the men have a day off between the quarters and semis the women will play three straight days which means fitness is going to be key with most of these matches expected to be hotly contested. Five of the final eight have won a NCAA Championship with Stanford leading the way with 19 titles, Georgia and UCLA each having 2, while Vanderbilt and Duke have 1. Neither South Carolina or Pepperdine have ever advanced past the quarterfinal round while North Carolina will look to do so for just the third time in program...
by Bobby Knight | May 13, 2019 | Blog
The NCAA Quarterfinals get started at noon eastern this Thursday at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona. In case you missed the announcement last week the USTA and the Tennis Channel have entered into a three-year partnership beginning with this week where the Tennis Channel will show more than 50 hours of live matches during the NCAA Championships. During the team portion of the NCAAs the Tennis Channel will show the two late matches each day and then on Sunday they’ll show both the men’s and women’s finals. The USTA National Campus website has plenty of information on the NCAAs and also lists all the matches that the Tennis Channel will...
by Bobby Knight | May 12, 2019 | Blog
The Super Regional round is officially in the books and after the host schools started off 14-0 they finished 14-2 with the final two matches on Saturday evening producing the two seeding upsets. In Starkville, No. 10 seed TCU knocked off No. 7 Mississippi State 4-2 in a match that finished just over six hours after it started due to a nearly three-hour rain delay that occurred early on in singles. In the first meeting between the two earlier this year it was Mississippi State winning the doubles point but on Saturday it was TCU that took the early lead after picking up wins at No. 1 and No. 3.Most of the first sets were five to six games in when...
by Bobby Knight | May 11, 2019 | Blog
The first day of Super Regional play brought us a few good matches and a few shutouts but they all ended with the home team coming out on top. The two closest matches of the day took place on the West Coast with Stanford edging Big XII Champion Kansas 4-3 while Pepperdine fought off a scrappy UCF team 4-2. Stanford won its 20th straight match and advanced to the Elite 8 for the 10th year in a row but it was far from easy. The Cardinal found themselves in a 1-0 hole after Kansas won the doubles point for the 25th time in 26 matches with a 6-2 win at No. 2 and a 6-3 win at No. 3. Each team claimed three opening sets in singles with three of the matches...
by Bobby Knight | May 8, 2019 | Blog
I previewed the NCAA Men’s Super Regionals on Monday and now it’s time to preview the NCAA Women’s Super Regionals which will take place on Friday and Saturday. Five of the eight Super Regionals will be rematches with UCLA and Washington set to meet for a third time while the two USCs (Southern Cal & South Carolina) will meet for the second time but first time on this continent after a January dual in Australia. Pepperdine and UCF will meet for the first-time ever while Stanford and Kansas will meet for the second time with the previous match taking place 22 years in 1997. The biggest underdog in terms of UTR Power 6s are...
by Bobby Knight | May 6, 2019 | Blog
A new era begins this weekend with the introduction of the Super Regionals which will take place on campus sites across the country. Up until this point all Round of 16 matches have taken place at the finals site but a change was announced back in January 2017 with “part of the rationale for the change being to provide teams with another opportunity to generate local support and highlight their programs in a championship-caliber competition.” The other main reason was to reduce the congested schedule, which always is made worse by rain, plus the new format allows for the semifinals and finals to be played on Saturday/Sunday as opposed to...
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