Sean Hill Wins The Mountain Regional; Lots of Newcomers in the Southwest Semifinals; Stanford Women Dominate the Northwest; Ton of Results
BYU sophomore Sean Hill capped off a great four days by winning the ITA Mountain Regional with a dominating 6-2, 6-1 win over the No. 3 seed Ricky Hernandez Tong (New Mexico). Hill only dropped two sets while defeating the No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, No. 9, and No. 15 seeds. Below are some quotes from BYU’s recap:
“This was some of the most amazing tennis,” BYU head coach Brad Pearce said. “I think it was the finest match I’ve seen on our courts—flawless tennis. It’s not as if his opponent didn’t play a solid match because he did. I think Sean would have beaten some of the best players in the world today because he played that well.”
“I’m feeling awesome because I definitely didn’t expect to win the tournament,” Hill said. “I just took it match-by-match. I’m looking forward to Nationals and hope to win some matches. The team has been so supportive of my first year playing for BYU, and they helped me in my last matches.”
For the first time in a while the champion at the Southwest Regional will be someone other than a player from USC or UCLA. The top three seeds all went down on Saturday with Arizona State’s Benjamin Hannestad and Michael Geerts defeating USC’s Logan Smith and Jack Jaede while UCSB’s Nicolas Moreno de Alboran defeated UCLA’s Logan Staggs. Arizona’s Alejandro Reguant-Bicardi is the fourth semifinalist after a straight set win over LMU’s Gabriel Diaz.
Plenty of results are down below so check them out.
Sean Hill’s Run Continues at the Mountain Regional; Big Shake-Up at the Men’s Central Regional; Southwest Regionals Into the Quarterfinals
BYU sophomore Sean Hill has been the star of the show at the ITA Mountain Regional with the unseeded Wake Forest transfer making his way all the way to the singles final after two more big wins on Friday. Hill knocked out the top seed Utah’s Dan Little on Thursday and today he defeated the No. 9 seed Utah State’s Samuel Serrano 6-4, 6-4 and then in the semifinals he defeated the No. 4 seed New Mexico State’s Christofer Goncalves 7-6, 1-6, 6-4. Hill is also into the semifinals of the doubles draw with he and New Orleans transfer Jeffrey Hsu set to play the top seeds from Northern Arizona on Saturday afternoon.
Hill’s opponent in Saturday’s final will be New Mexico’s Ricky Hernandez Tong after the Lobo junior defeated the No. 5 seed Northern Arizona’s Tim Handel 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 and the No. 2 seed Utah’s David Micevski 7-5, 7-5.
Men’s Regional Update From the Mountain, Northwest, Southwest, Ohio Valley, and Central
While the Mountain Regional finished up its second day of main draw play several other regionals just got started on Thursday with a few more not firing up until Friday or Saturday. Below is a brief recap from five of the men’s regionals with more updates to come throughout the weekend.
ITA Regional Championships – Week 2
Last week there were 7 ITA Regionals played which means the remaining 17 are this week. There will be 10 men’s regionals and 7 women’s regionals with the singles finalists and doubles winners advancing to the Oracle/ITA National Fall Championships in early November. All the draws are out and I have listed the top 8 seeds for each of those regionals down below.
I believe there will be live streaming from 6 regionals with Texas A&M, Yale, Stanford, Kansas, Auburn, and Georgia each having the capabilities to do so. Michigan and Liberty are the only two schools that have mentioned they are doing live scoring so we’ll see if there are any more.
Pro Circuit Recap: Mackenzie McDonald & Thai Kwiatkowski Win Singles Titles; Aron Hiltzik Wins His First Doubles Title; Abigail Tere-Apisah Rolling in Doubles; David O’Hare Wins Another Challenger Doubles Title
This past week was a good one for recent NCAA singles champions with the 2016 champ Mackenzie McDonald winning the $100K Fairfield Challenger while the 2017 champ Thai Kwiatkowski won the $25K Houston Futures.
Prior to last week McDonald’s best performance at the Challenger-level was the semifinals but he plowed past that point with a straight set win over Australia’s Christopher O’Connell and then in the finals he defeated Bradley Klahn 6-4, 6-2. McDonald earned a $14,400 payday plus he picked up 90 ATP ranking points which moved him up to a new career-high ranking of 164.
ITA Regional Wrap Up – Turati, Lommer, Novotna, & Patten Win Singles Titles; Evansville Eliminates Women’s Tennis Program
The ITA Carolina Regional had a strong field with the likes of Nicolas Alvarez, Gabriel Friedrich, Robert Kelly, and Christian Seraphim but when play commenced on Tuesday morning the big winner was UNC Asheville junior Henry Patten. The reigning Big South Player of the Year won all six matches in straight sets, including a 6-3, 6-1 win in the singles final over Clemson’s Alex Favrot, to earn an automatic bid in the ITA National Fall Championships. Below are some comments from UNCA’s recap:
“It shows a lot of the hard work is worth it and the progression is really nice,” Patten mused. “I just want to thank Coach Tom Hand as he has been a big part of that progression. I also want to thank my teammates and my family for keeping up in England. It was a really long weekend of tennis and their support really helped.”
“I think that this is going to show the whole team is playing at a really high level,” Patten said. “I practice with those guys every day and I am able to compete at a very high level. It shows the margin is so small between UNC Asheville and others.”
Texas sophomore Bianca Turati won an all-Texas singles final at the Texas Regional with a 7-5, 6-3 win over sophomore Petra Granic. Turati only dropped one set in her six matches with four of those wins coming over seeded players three of which were ranked in the ITA Top 125. Rice’s Lindsey Hodge and Wendy Zhang prevented a Texas sweep by winning a close doubles final 3-6, 6-4, 10-8 over Marta Perez Mur and Dani Wagland.
“Bianca and Petra waged a demanding battle,” said UT head coach Howard Joffe via Texas’s recap. “These ladies are teammates and roommates, and I cannot be more proud of the way in which the match was played. Both ladies were ferocious and yet were great sportswomen! Today, Bianca came out on top and no one is happier for her than Petra.”
ITA Regionals – Kentucky Sweeps Ohio Valley; Walker Duncan Wins Southeast; Texas in Good Shape; Fukuda/Lommer to Meet in Midwest Final
Kentucky came away from the Ohio Valley Regional as the big winner after Justina Mikulskyte won the singles title and Mami Adachi and Akvile Parazinskaite won an all-Kentucky doubles final. Mikulskyte edged Purdue’s Silvia Ambrosio 7-6(9), 6-3 in the singles final to cap off a week in which the UK junior won six matches with five of them coming in straight sets.
“I am proud of our team,” said head coach Carlos Drada via Kentucky’s recap. “They continue to buy into our philosophies and continue to play with joy and mental toughness. It is not an easy feat to win singles and doubles regionals two-straight years against some of the best teams in the nation.”
Georgia junior Walker Duncan won not one, not two, but three matches on Monday to win the Southeast Regional at Georgia Tech. Duncan defeated teammate Emil Reinberg in straight sets in the quarterfinals, Florida State’s Alex Knaff in straight sets in the semifinals, and then teammate and top seed Wayne Montgomery 6-2, 6-3 in the finals. Georgia had three of the four semifinalists with Jan Zielinski joining Montgomery and Duncan after defeating Florida State’s Guy Iradukunda in straight sets.
“We are really excited about this tournament so far,” said head coach Manuel Diaz via Georgia’s recap. “Our guys have had a terrific week. It was really a source of pride to have three guys in the semifinals. To say that it is an all-Georgia singles final is something I think is very exciting for our program. We have seen tremendous growth in our players, especially Jan getting into the semis and Walker into the finals. Our guys are getting better. They have worked very hard and we are very excited about the future.”
Texas will have a chance to sweep the Texas Regional on Tuesday with Bianca Turati and Petra Granic set to meet in the singles final while Marta Perez Mur and Dani Wagland will meet Rice’s Lindsey Hodge and Wendy Zhang in the doubles final.
“Once again our ladies performed tremendously,” said third-year UT head coach Howard Joffe via Texas’s recap. “In the singles, Bianca Turati was superb, and the uneven score line is emblematic of how dominant the tennis was. Petra Granic competed as well as I’ve seen anyone all year. She was the victim of a barrage of winners by the TCU player early on. But, Petra never flinched. Her discipline and effort allowed her to erase a large deficit,” Joffe continued. “By the end of the match, Petra was playing awfully well and was largely in control of the match. (Alexandra) Zenovka of TCU is an experienced player who played outstanding tennis this week.”
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