by Bobby Knight | Sep 23, 2015 | Blog
The fall season continues this week with several schools hosting tournaments – below are a few that I’ll keep some tabs on. For a full list of all the tournaments check out the ITA’s page. I’ll add draws and tournament info as they become available – I’d expect most school’s will have a post on Thursday with more details.Porsche Napa Valley Tennis Classic – St. Helena, CA – Teams Participating: Baylor, Cal (host), Florida, Princeton, Stanford, Texas, USTA Juniors.Friday, September 19, 20149:30 a.m. Orkin (Florida) v. Day (Princeton)Wikberg (Cal) v. Crawford (USTA)Scott (Texas) v. Paige...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 21, 2015 | Blog
2 more singles titles last week for former college guys with Dennis Novikov and Tom Jomby winning in Cary and Antalya respectively. Mackenzie McDonald, Jaime Pulgar-Garcia, and Sanam Singh each made Futures finals but came up just short.Dennis Novikov (UCLA ’13) won his 1st career Challenger by knocking off Ryan Harrison 6-4, 7-5 in the finals of the $50K Cary Challenger. Novikov only dropped 1 set all week in route to his 7th career pro singles title and with the 80 points that he earned he now has a new career high singles ranking of 163 (184 was previous). Below is Novikov’s post-match speech courtesy of Lang.Tom Jomby (Kentucky...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 21, 2015 | Blog
TCU’s Cameron Norrie claimed the inaugural Oracle ITA Masters with a 6-3, 7-6(2) win over Duke’s Nicolas Alvarez in the finals. Norrie came out ready to play and jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Alvarez got a break back but Norrie still took the set 6-3. Norrie would lead 5-3 in the 2nd set and have a match point on the Alvarez serve but Alvarez won the 40-all deciding point to make it 5-4. Alvarez would then break from 30-40 to even it at 5-5 and then he’d hold at love to go up 6-5. Norrie would then hold from 40-15 to send the second set to a tiebreak and the tiebreak would be all Norrie as he’d go up 4-0 and...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 20, 2015 | Blog
Duke’s Nicolas Alvarez and TCU’s Cameron Norrie, both sophomores, will play for Oracle ITA Masters Championship on Sunday after each managed to win not once but twice on a toasty Saturday afternoon in Malibu. Alvarez started the day off by cruising past TCU’s Guillermo Nunez 6-3, 6-2 before getting all he wanted and more from Texas Tech’s Felipe Soares in the semifinals. Soares took the opening set 6-3 but Alvarez squeezed out the 2nd set in a tiebreak 7-6(7). The 3rd set was all Alvarez as he handed Soares a 3rd set bagel to close out the 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-0 win.Norrie’s path to the finals was fairly similar to Alvarez’s...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 19, 2015 | Blog
It wasn’t a good day to be seeded player in the men’s draw of the Oracle ITA Masters with each of the 4 seeds getting taken out in the 1st round. Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery and Oklahoma’s Axel Alvarez, the #1 seed, squared off for the 3rd time in the last 12 months with each having won once. Montgomery won 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 a year ago at the Southern Intercollegiates in Athens while Alvarez won 6-1, 6-1 at the NCAA Team Quarterfinals last May in Waco. Alvarez jumped out to the early break lead but Montgomery turned it around quickly and got off the court with the 6-4, 6-2 win.Texas Tech’s Felipe Soares upset Virginia’s...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 17, 2015 | Blog
There are a lot of fall tournament action taking place this weekend with Malibu, San Francisco, Charlottesville, Durham, Princeton, and Midland the hottest spots.The inaugural Oracle ITA Masters will be taking place Friday through Sunday in Malibu. The best news is that the finals of both the men’s and women’s events will be shown LIVE on the Tennis Channel from 12:30pm pst to 5pm pst. Check out the full draws below – who do you like?Live scoring for the MastersITA RnkUTR RnkNameSchoolUTR Rating11Axel Alvarez LlamasOklahoma15.1516T-16Wayne MontgomeryGeorgia14.381021Dominik Koepfer Tulane14.283154Max TchoutakianBaylor13.9615T-25Cameron...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 16, 2015 | Blog
The ITA released its preseason rankings today with Oklahoma’s Axel Alvarez #1 in the men’s singles rankings and Stanford’s Carol Zhao #1 in the women’s singles rankings. Georgia’s Austin Smith and Ben Wagland are the men’s #1 doubles duo with Florida’s Brooke Austin and Kourtney Keegan the women’s #1 duo. As you comb through these preseason rankings and wonder how so-and-so ended up where they did I’ll let you in on a little secret that some know and some don’t – the preseason rankings are just the year-end rankings from the previous season with all the graduating seniors pulled out. They...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 14, 2015 | Blog
The Southern Intercollegiates in Athens will crown its Division 1 and Division II singles champions on Monday as well as a Division I doubles champion.The Division I singles draw comes down to Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery (14.36 UTR) and Georgia Gwinnett’s Kevin Konfederak (13.65 UTR). Montgomery, who is the defending champion, picked up a tough 7-6(2), 7-6(5) win in the one semifinal over Georgia Tech’s Christopher Eubanks while Konfederak won the other semifinal over Georgia’s Paul Oosterbaan 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(2). John Frierson had a detail-filled recap of the Montgomery/Eubanks match which mentioned that Eubanks lost a few points due to...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 13, 2015 | Blog
3 more singles titles this week as Adrien Puget, Remi Boutillier, and Matija Pecotic each won on the ITF Futures circuit.Adrien Puget (UCLA ’14) won his 2nd career Futures singles title with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 win over Albert Alcaraz Ivorra in the finals of the Spain F28. Puget’s other title came earlier this year at the Spain F10 which was also on clay. When these 35 points are added in next week Puget will have a new career high singles ranking of somewhere in the 450-460 range (583 was previous high).Remi Boutillier (Fresno State ’12) won his 7th career Futures singles title with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Francesco Vilardo in the finals of the...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 10, 2015 | Blog
The wait is over – college tennis is back and I couldn’t be more excited. Lots of heavy hitters will be in Athens this weekend for the Southern Intercollegiates with Georgia, Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Armstrong State, Clemson, Mississippi State, and more sending several guys to compete – click the here for Georgia’s preview and you can see the complete draws below.Here is the Division I singles draw broken down by UTR, School, & Seed.East Carolina hosts the ECU Fall Shootout with the Pirates welcoming players from College of Charleston, Elon, James Madison, Richmond.Penn hosts the Penn Invitational with the Quakers welcoming in...
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