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 went unfinished.

In the semifinals against Hawaii Hilo, CSU won the doubles point comfortably and then after winning four first sets in singles Alvaro Regalado, Javier Cueto Ramos, and Pietro Martinetti closed their matches in straight sets at 1, 4, and 6. There was one match that was still in the first set at the time of the clinch.

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 No. 2 doubles but UCLA’s Annette Goulak and Vivian Wolff got it back on serve at 4-3 after a break of the Pachkaleva serve from 15/40. Pepperdine broke the Goulak serve from 15/40 to go up 5-3 but UCLA broke the Fakuda serve on the deciding point to make it 5-4. A fourth consecutive break would end the match with Pepperdine breaking Wolff’s serve from 30/40 to win it 6-4.

The match at No. 3 doubles stayed on serve through the first four games then Pepperdine’s Jessica Failla and Anastasia Iamachkine broke the Elysia Bolton serve from 15/40 to go up 3-2. Bolton and Abi Altick broke Failla’s serve from 15/40 to even it at 3-3 and then Altick went up 40/0 on her serve. Pepperdine would take the next four points to break on the deciding point and then Iamachkine held from 40/30 to put the Waves up 5-3. Despite dropping four of the previous five games, Bolton and Altick weren’t finished yet. Bolton held from 40/15 to make it 5-4 and UCLA broke the Failla serve from 30/40 to make it 5-5. Altick held from 40/30 for 6-5 and then after Iamachkine went up 40/0, Altick and Bolton would take the next four points to break to win it 7-5.

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 happens it will mean they have snapped Texas’s 21-match winning streak.

North Carolina has been eyeing its first national title all-season long and standing in its way of advancing to the semifinals is its next door neighbor Duke. The Tar Heels had its way with the Blue Devils in the regular season but will the outcome be the same this time?

On the men’s side it’s rematch city – Baylor and TCU will meet for the fourth time this season, Florida and Texas A&M will meet for the third time, and Tennessee/Georgia and Texas/USC will meet for a second time.

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 Philip Henning and Erik Grevelius won 6-4 at No. 3. The pivotal point at No. 3 came when Henning and Grevelius broke the Rinky Hijikata serve on the deciding point to take a 5-4 lead and then Grevelius served it out at love. The deciding match at No. 2 saw no breaks of serve, and in fact no break opportunities, and went to a tiebreak. UNC’s Simon Soendergaard and Mac Kiger led 2-1* early in the tiebreak but UGA’s Blake Croyder and Billy Rowe won the next six points to close it out 7-2.

The opening day of play at the beautiful USTA National Campus in Orlando wrapped up late Sunday night with Duke pulling off the one seeding upset of the day in a 4-3 win over UCF.

Duke entered the match, on the home courts of the No. 9 seed UCF, as one of the three unseeded teams but most considered this to be a 50/50 match. UCF got off to a great start in doubles and took early 3-1 leads on all three courts and would eventually close out No. 2 doubles by a 6-3 score. However the Knights wouldn’t be as successful holding on to the lead on the other two courts. Duke’s No. 1 team of Meible Chi and Margaryta Bilokin reeled off five straight games, with none of them reaching the deciding point, to win 6-3. In the last match on court at No. 3, Duke’s Kelly Chen and Georgia Drummy would take five of the next six games to clinch the doubles point with a 6-4 win. The two pivotal games came with Chen serving at 3-4 and UCF’s Evgeniya Levashova serving at 4-5. In the 3-4 game, Chen fought off a pair of break points to hold for 4-4. Then in the 4-5 game, Levashova led 40/30 but double faulted to bring up the deciding point and then an error at the net cost the Knights the match.

In years past if you advanced to the D2 finals site you started in the Round of 16 but due to COVID the field was trimmed and thus we go straight to the Elite 8. Usually each of the 8 regions are split into two regionals but this year there was just 1 per region so that’s how we ended with 8 instead of 16. The men will be playing three straight days starting on Tuesday so it’s going to be survival of the fittest in the hot desert sun with temperatures expected to be in the mid to high 90s.

The top two seeds, Columbus State and Barry, are the only two remaining that have won a National Championship. Columbus State won the title in 2018 while Barry is the defending champion and has titles in 2019, 2015, 2013, and 2010.

The most competitive match should be the 4 versus 5 between #22 Concordia NY and and #6 Hawaii Hilo and in fact that’s only match where I’m not predicting a 4-0 final.

The men will fire things up on Monday morning at 10:00 am ET with play expected to go well into the night. The only rematch from a regular season meeting will be the All-SEC affair between Texas A&M and Mississippi State. This will be the first time Arizona has made a Round of 16 appearance and it’ll also be the first time that a Round of 16 has been contested without UCLA whose 43-year streak came to an end after an opening round loss to Northwestern.

The winners of Monday’s matches will advance to the quarterfinals which will be held on Thursday.

For a full recap of how each team earned its spot in the Sweet 16 you can read my opening round recap at this link.