by Bobby Knight | May 1, 2017 | Blog
The top seeds made their mark over the last three weekends with 21 of 30 conference tournament winners having a 1 in front of its name. The only conference that didn’t have a conference tournament was the Ivy League. Dartmouth finished in a three-way tie with Cornell and Harvard but the Big Green got the nod via a tiebreak. There were 18 repeat champions with only Vanderbilt and Furman able to win the tournament on its home court. The longest shot to win a conference tournament was South Florida. The Bulls entered the AAC Tournament as the No. 7 seed but they knocked No. 10 Temple, No. 2 Tulane, No. 3 SMU, and then No. 1 Tulsa to win the title....
by Bobby Knight | May 1, 2017 | Blog
The last of the conference tournaments finished up on Sunday so we now know the 31 automatic qualifiers. The only conference that didn’t have a conference tournament was the Ivy League. Columbia finished in a three-way tie with Cornell and Harvard but the Lions got the automatic bid due to having the highest ITA ranking in last week’s rankings. Down below I have a breakdown of the conference tournament winners by seed which show us that the top seed won in 19 of 30 (63%) tournaments – as a point of reference last year it was 18 of 30 (60%). There were 14 repeat champions and there was only one host, Florida Gulf Coast, that defended its turf....
by Bobby Knight | May 1, 2017 | Blog
Virginia won its 12th ACC Tournament Championship by defeating the top seed and top ranked team in the country Wake Forest 4-3. The Cavaliers came into the match having lost two straight against Wake Forest after the Demon Deacons beat them in last year’s ACC Championship and then earlier this year in Winston-Salem. Virginia jumped out to the early 1-0 lead after picking up doubles wins at No. 2 and No. 3. UVA’s No. 2 team of Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Alexander Ritschard broke for 5-3 and then served it out for 6-3 while its No. 3 team of Collin Altamirano and JC Aragone clinched the point by breaking to win 6-4.Virginia came out strong in...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 30, 2017 | Blog
USC won its third Pac-12 Tournament Championship with a thrilling 4-3 win over crosstown rival UCLA. The Trojans jumped out to the early 1-0 lead after winning the deciding doubles match in a tiebreak and then they tacked on four first sets in singles. UCLA junior Martin Redlicki tied the match at 1-1 with a straight set win at No. 2 but USC retook the lead after Logan Smith won 7-5, 6-1 at No. 3. Thibault Forget made it 3-1 after a 6-2, 7-5 win at No. 3 but UCLA wasn’t ready to go away. Maxime Cressy pulled out a 7-6, 6-4 win at No. 6 and Logan Staggs came back from a set down to win 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 at No. 4. The match came down to a deciding third set at...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 29, 2017 | Blog
Texas Tech came into this week knowing that it’s only way to earn an NCAA Tournament berth was to win the conference tournament and amazingly they now sit just one match away from accomplishing that goal. On Saturday afternoon, Texas Tech picked up its third top 10 win in the last six days after coming back from 2-0 down to defeat No. 8 Oklahoma State 4-3. Oklahoma State jumped out to the early lead after winning a close doubles point and then Artur Dubinski made it 2-0 with a straight set win at No. 5. Texas Tech came back with three-set wins from Bjorn Thomson, Alex Sendegeya, and Connor Curry to go in front 3-2 before Oklahoma State’s Lukas...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 28, 2017 | Blog
It was an exciting morning/early afternoon of tennis in Norman that ended with a pair of seeding upsets. For the second time in five days Texas Tech upset Baylor with the Red Raiders riding a hot start in both singles and doubles to take the match 3-2. Baylor’s Max Tchoutakian fought off several match points at No. 2 to force a third set but shortly thereafter Texas Tech’s Connor Curry clinched the win at No. 4. Check out Texas Tech’s recap for all the details. In the other match that was taking place at the same time it was the host Oklahoma knocking off Texas 4-3. The Sooners won a crucial doubles point and then with the match tied at...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog
The latest USTA Top 25 is out with both the Wake Forest men and Florida women remaining at No. 1. The men’s top five stayed the same with UCLA surging up to No. 6 after defeating USC last week while USC actually comes up one spot to No. 7 after the loss. Cal moved up four spots to No. 8 after knocking off Stanford, idle Texas A&M moved up two spots to No. 9, while Oklahoma State fell four spots to No. 10 after Oklahoma whipped them. South Florida was the only newcomer in the top 25 while Tulane dropped out after UCF blanked in the AAC Tourney. The women’s top three remained the same with Vanderbilt and Stanford swapping...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 26, 2017 | Blog
It’s been a season of milestone wins and broken records for the Oregon men’s tennis team.The Ducks (18-5, 4-3 Pac-12) closed the regular season tied for fourth place in the conference, their best Pac-12 finish ever, and now head to Pac-12 Championships in Ojai, Calif., as the No. 4 seed and with a first-round bye, awaiting either Stanford and Arizona in the quarterfinals.Oregon’s 18 wins are second-most under head coach Nils Schyllander, only behind last season’s 19, and its 4-3 win over No. 15 Stanford on April 16 matched the highest-ranked win in program history. The Ducks are currently ranked 21st in the nation and have been ranked...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 25, 2017 | Blog
The ITA released its latest team, singles, and doubles rankings today with the Wake Forest men and Florida women remaining in the top spots though Florida’s gap narrowed a good bit after its loss to Vanderbilt. TCU and UCLA entered the top five on the men’s side after TCU beat Baylor and Texas while UCLA defeated USC. Baylor’s losses to TCU and Texas Tech knocked them down two spots to No. 6, USC fell one spot to No. 7, and Oklahoma State fell three spots to No. 8 after losing to Oklahoma. Purdue made the biggest jump in the top 50 by coming up 19 spots to No. 35 after the Boilers went on the road and beat both Minnesota and...
by Bobby Knight | Apr 25, 2017 | Blog
This will be the final week of the regular season with 18 conference tournaments taking place on both the men’s and women’s side. Of the 18 conferences playing tournaments this week, the only two that don’t have both the men and women playing are the SEC and the Patriot League. The SEC women played last week while the men will play this week and the Patriot men played last week while the women will play this week. The only conference that doesn’t hold a tournament is the Ivy League.There have been 24 conference tournaments that have been played so far and in those 24 tournaments the No. 1 seed has won 20 (.833) times. The only teams to...
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