SEC Weekly Rewind

Tagged with: SEC

I’d like to introduce our newest College Tennis Today contributor, Chris Halioris, who will be breaking down everything in the SEC. Chris has a nephew that is currently playing in the SEC and he is a big college tennis fan in general. Chris just debuted a new site, College Tennis Ranks, which projects the ITA team rankings for the next week plus it has a ton of great features which help you understand how the rankings are tabulated. I highly recommend bookmarking his site plus I’ll be adding it in under my rankings tab to make it easy to find. Now it’s time for Chris’s recap of the past week:

Two big matches and one big surprise this week for the men. Florida was involved in both of the big matches as they took on TCU at home and Vanderbilt on the road. The Gators came up on the short end against TCU taking a tough 4-3 loss at the Ring but rebounded for an easy 4-0 sweep at home against Kentucky on Friday and then played the marquee matchup Sunday at Vandy which I happened to travel to. Florida looked to be rolling early as they took the doubles point and 4 first sets and looked as though they were about to close the match out after Perez and Perez-Blanco made it 3-1 and Vale was in control. Then all of a sudden Vale double faults on a deuce match point at 5-4 in the second and the momentum began to swing. Billy Rowe took the set, Baker Newman took the second set from Oliver Crawford and Johannes Ingildsen lost his match to make it 3-2 Gators. The next thing you know Vandy is up a break on both remaining courts and Florida looks to be in deep trouble. Billy Rowe capped off a very energetic win over Vale on court 4 and now all eyes were on court 3 where Oliver Crawford managed to break back to get on serve just as Vale lost. From 4-4 Crawford held and then Baker Newman dug out of a 15-40 hole at 4-5 to get to deuce but lost a very tough break point to give the Gators the match 4-3.

 

Elsewhere things were all going according to plan on Sunday until something happened in Fayetteville. With Georgia holding a 3-1 lead and looking to be headed to the victory, that many thought they would have in fairly routine fashion, the Razorbacks made a push getting 3 matches into a third set. Jose Salazar struck first with a 6-1 victory in the third on 1 over Emil Reinberg and it was 3-2 Georgia. Next up freshman Pedro Alonso pulled off a court 5 upset over Robert Loeb 7-5 in the third to knot the match at 3-3. It all came down to court 3 where Oscar Mesquida posted a 6-2 third set victory over Nathan Ponwith to give Arkansas the 4-3 win. Walker Duncan played doubles both days over the weekend for Georgia but did not play singles either day and that proved to be a big factor Sunday as Georgia lost on courts 5 and 6 with Loeb and Diaz both sliding up a spot in the lineup.

 

 

Texas A&M continues to look the part of the conference favorite as they downed a tough Notre Dame on Thursday in an out of conference match and then posted an easy 7-0 sweep over LSU on Sunday. A&M currently sits at 4-0 in SEC play along with Mississippi State who is off to a great start with an early home win over Florida.

Current standings and the weeks results follow.

 

Team	Record
Mississippi State	4-0
Texas A&M	4-0
Florida	5-1
Kentucky	4-1
Tennessee	4-1
Vanderbilt	4-1
Arkansas	2-4
South Carolina	2-4
Alabama	1-4
Georgia	1-4
LSU	1-4
Ole Miss	1-5
Auburn	0-4

 

Wednesday March 14
TCU def. Florida 4-3
Thursday March 15
Tulane def. Auburn 5-2
Texas A&M def. Notre Dame 5-2

Friday March 16
Mississippi State def. Alabama 4-0
Tennessee def. Arkansas 4-3
Florida def. Kentucky 4-0
Georgia def. Ole Miss 5-2
Vanderbilt def. South Carolina 5-2

Sunday March 18
Alabama def. Auburn 4-0
Arkansas def. Georgia 4-3
Florida def. Vanderbilt 4-3
Kentucky def. South Carolina 4-2
Texas A&M def. LSU 7-0
Tennessee def. Ole Miss 4-0

Women

Mississippi State pulled off what may be the best weekend on record for an unranked team. The Bulldogs started the week Thursday with a shocking 4-3 victory over #2 Vanderbilt at home. It was the second 4-3 match clinch in a row for Anastasia Rentouli who had clinched the previous Saturday in a 3-3 match at Alabama. The Commodores won the doubles point which would have seemed to be an almost insurmountable deficit for the #62 Bulldogs headed into singles but they came out firing on all cylinders. Vanderbilt captured three first sets and looked to be in good shape. After a split of matches on courts 1, 2, 3 and 5 the match stood at 3-2 Vanderbilt. Khrystyna Vozniak pulled off a tough 7-6(5), 7-6(8) win to knot the match at 3-3. Things were looking very good at that point as Rentouli was up 4-0 in the 3rd. She pushed the advantage to 5-1 and then Vandys Amanda Meyer decided she had other plans and got to 5-5, broke for a 6-5 advantage and served for the match. Rentouli however never gave up, broke back to get to a tiebreak and then became the more aggressive player in the breaker winning it 7-5 to give the Bulldogs the huge upset.

 

 

On Sunday the Bulldogs were back in action against #14 Kentucky in what appeared to be another uphill battle but they almost made it look easy in dispatching the Wildcats 4-0 with guess who, Anastasia Rentouli, clinching the match on court 4 for the third match in a row.

Elsewhere in the SEC there was a marquee matchup Sunday between two teams with unblemished conference records in #10 South Carolina and #8 Georgia. Georgia got off to a good start by taking the doubles point but South Carolina bounced back and made quick work of the Bulldogs with straight set victories on courts 1, 2, 3 and 6. South Carolina put on quite a display in the top three spots only giving up a total of 11 games including an impressive 6-3, 6-1 victory for #110 Ingrid Gamarra Martins over #2 Katarina Jokic.

 

 

Its still a very tight battle for the conference as there are four teams behind undefeated South Carolina that only have one loss with a lot of tennis yet to be played.

Current standings and the weeks results follow.

 

Team	Record
South Carolina	6-0
Florida	5-1
Vanderbilt	5-1
Auburn	4-1
Georgia	4-1
Kentucky	3-3
LSU	3-3
Mississippi State	3-3
Texas A&M	3-3
Ole Miss	2-4
Arkansas	1-4
Alabama	0-5
Missouri	0-5
Tennessee	0-5

 

Thursday March 15
LSU def. Arkansas 4-2
Ole Miss def. Kentucky 4-1
Mississippi State def. Vanderbilt 4-3
Texas A&M def. Missouri 4-0

Friday March 16
Auburn def. Alabama 4-0
Georgia def. Florida 4-1
South Carolina def. Tennessee 4-1

Saturday March 17
Texas A&M def. Arkansas 4-2
LSU def. Missouri 4-2
Vanderbilt def. Ole Miss 4-2
Mississippi State def. Kentucky 4-0

Sunday Match 18
Florida def. Tennessee 4-1
South Carolina def. Georgia 4-1
Tennessee def. Lipscomb 4-0