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The books have been closed on the 2014-15 season though technically we still have one more set of singles/doubles rankings to tackle when they come out next Wednesday.

Virginia won its 2nd NCAA Championship in the last 3 years while Oklahoma won its 1st National Team Indoor Championship and finished as NCAA Runner-Up for the 2nd year in a row. 
Each of the 3 “Grand Slams” had a different champion in both singles and doubles so the wealth was spread out evenly this year.
Team Events:

2015 NCAA Champions (Waco) – Virginia
2015 National Indoor Champions (Chicago) – Oklahoma 
Individual Events:
NCAA (Waco)
Singles – Ryan Shane (Virginia)
Doubles – Soren Hess-Olesen/Lloyd Glasspool (Texas)
National Indoor Intercollegiates (NYC)
Singles – Brayden Schnur (North Carolina)
Doubles – Yannick Hanfmann/Roberto Quiroz (USC)
All American (Tulsa)
Singles – Sebastian Stiefelmeyer (Louisville)
Doubles – Mikelis Libietis/Hunter Reese (Tennessee)
Thoughts on NCAA Championships in Waco:
This was my first visit to Waco and Baylor and I must say that I was extremely impressed with the Hurd Tennis Center and the campus.  I’ve been to Athens, Palo Alto, Tulsa, College Station, Champaign, and now Waco and I think from a viewing standpoint Baylor’s layout was the best. The Grandstand Courts (top pic) have stadium seating with a roof overhang while the Riverside Courts (bottom pic) have mainly standing room though you have a really good view from the top of the Grandstand. If you choose to stand by the Riverside Courts you’re virtually on top of the courts within earshot of everything.  It was nice being able to watch 2 matches at the same time by just turning your head around as opposed to some other venues where you have to walk around the corner or across the street or peak through a fence.  

The Hawkins Indoor Center was about a 5 minute walk across the parking lot and a 4-lane highway. I was just inside it once during the women’s quarterfinals and while it didn’t have a ton of seating I thought the lighting inside was excellent and the view from the front row was great. It also had individual scoreboards on each court with point by point scoring.

Yes the weather wasn’t great but there’s only so much that can be done about that.  It seems to rain every year during the NCAAs – some years more than others. I thought they could have moved play up a few hours during the women’s quarterfinals to avoid the threat of rain but it all worked out in the end.

I thought the crowds were good on both Saturday and Sunday though it’s too bad the semifinals had to be played at 1pm on a Monday because I think there would have been a much larger turnout if they played the men’s semis in early evening (it was the women’s year for the late matches on Mon/Tues). Baylor and TCU of course had the biggest turnouts though Oklahoma’s fans made some noise as did Virginia’s. I thought at times the Virginia/Baylor match felt like a Virginia home match because of the noise the Wahoo followers were making. I didn’t see any fan heckling or disorderly behavior though I probably would had I been court-side for the finish of the OU/TCU match.

I would have liked to seen the quarterfinal and semifinal matches spread out instead of having them start at the same time.  It’s only been recently that they made that shift from a staggered 9, 12, 3, 6 start time to the 12 and 3 that they use now.  Not sure what the rationale is with having 2 matches going on at the same time when they could have easily been played back-to-back on the main courts. It’d be great if they could figure out a schedule that would have the Championship held on Memorial Day with the quarters and semis taking place Saturday/Sunday or Friday/Sunday. I mean how many people do the NCAA truly expect to attend a 1pm match on Monday or Tuesday especially when school is already out? Ideally when scheduling the tournament you’d like to avoid graduation weekend because of the hotel shortage it causes. I stayed in neighboring Temple on Saturday during the team event because I didn’t feel like paying $200 to stay in a hotel that would normally cost $60.

Another thing I don’t quite understand is when a match comes down to the final court(s) why don’t the chair umpires from the other completed courts assist with covering the lines on the remaining ones? I’ve seen it done during conference tournaments and had it been done at the end of the TCU/OU match there wouldn’t have been any kind of dispute about who called what. It just seems logical to the have the umpire team work together until the match is done. I should have asked someone on Tuesday before the team final why they didn’t help out but I got caught up in the moment and it slipped my mind.

The streaming video through PlaySight was a HUGE upgrade over what Baylor previously had in place. I obviously didn’t watch it when I was there but I watched the Round of 16 from home along with the individuals and thought it was a great picture and having the sound was a huge plus.

The crew from Baylor did a great job hosting the event.  Special thanks to Julie Bennett, Assistant AD of Athletic Communications, for keeping the media room open late each night during the team portion – I helped turn the lights off more than once.

I enjoyed meeting several of the sports information directors most notably Sean Doerre from Baylor and Steve Kirkland from Virginia. Abby Norman from TCU was very welcoming as well.

I got to meet the curator of Baylor’s Blog – Mr. Kim Gorum. Kim manned his station every day of the tournament and did a super job of keeping everyone in the loop on as many matches as he could. It’s not easy sifting through hundreds of comments and responding to some of them while at the same time trying to do some point by point scoring.  Kim juggled it all and kept his sanity – I’m sure he’s enjoying some rest now.

I got to work side-by-side with “The Colette Lewis”. I’ve been reading Colette’s ZooTennis blog for years so it was great to meet her in person. I love college tennis but I’m usually cooked by the time the team portion is over. Colette on the other hand was just getting warmed up; she stayed for the entire 12 days and watched more tennis than anyone not named Kim Gorum so if you missed one of her posts during the tournament make sure you go back and check them out.

Every year when I go to the NCAAs the one keepsake I get is a t-shirt and I was able to get 1 of the grey t-shirts although I really wanted one of the short-sleeve charcoal color ones but by Monday morning they had run out of them in XL. I’ve always wondered what they did with the ones they don’t sell – I was looking for the buy one/get one free special but never saw it.

I don’t know about others in Waco but I never felt unsafe after the motorcycle shooting at the restaurant. It happening 5 miles from campus was alarming but I never felt like a pack of motorcycles would descend upon the tennis center to cause trouble.

We had some good talk on twitter about the individual portion of the NCAAs and when and where it should be held. Logistically it works out well in its current format because most of the players are already in town for the team event but the burnout factor can’t be ignored. It seems every year we get a handful of results that make you shake your head – Mackenzie McDonald losing 0 & 2 to Lloyd Glasspool, Mitchell Frank losing to Max Tchoutakian, Axel Alvarez losing to Tony Lupieri, Romain Bogaerts losing 2 & 0 to Jeremy Efferding, etc.  It was amazing that Ryan Shane was able to win after playing as much tennis as he played during the team portion – I guess that shows some guys are able to stay focused more than others.

If these matches were played during another time of the year I don’t think we see the same outcome in any of those 4 above mentioned upsets. I guess the question is if you don’t play the individuals after the team portion when do you play it?  If the US Open/National Tennis Center were on board I’d like to see the NCAA singles and doubles held in mid August finishing just before the US Open. The singles and doubles winners could get main draw wild cards with the losers getting qualifying wild cards. It’d give the seniors who graduated in May one last hurrah and they’d be fully rested to give it their best although I’m not sure how that’d work (or if it’d work) in terms of eligibility.  Just a thought but I don’t expect any changes anytime soon.

I believe the tennis season is longer than any other collegiate sport with the individual portion starting in September and the team portion ending in late May.  We can’t go 3 months without any talk so I’ll do my best to keep posting as frequently as possible throughout the summer.

In the next day or so I’ll have my College Tennis Today State of the Union address to go over how the season went with the blog (in terms of numbers) and talk about what I’m trying to come up with for next season. I’ll also mention what things I plan on posting over the summer to keep College Tennis in the forefront.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great season and let’s keep the momentum going strong into next year.