by Bobby Knight | Feb 20, 2017 | Blog
What a match it was!! The final of the 2017 Men’s ITA National Team Indoor Championships had it all from a controversial ending to the doubles point, to someone getting a game penalty for a racquet smash, to guys coming back from multiple breaks down, and to finally having JC Aragone fight off a match point to clinch the championship in a third set tiebreak. So let’s start with the doubles point which was expected to be highly competitive and it was on a few courts but most definitely was not at No. 1. Virginia’s Luca Corinteli and Carl Soderlund had yet to pick up a win during the tournament, because Virginia had already clinched elsewhere,...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 20, 2017 | Blog
What a match it was!! Virginia holds off Ohio State 4-1 – more to come later…..box score down below. #1 Virginia 4, #3 Ohio State 1Feb 20, 2017 at Charlottesville, VA (The Boar’s Head Sports Club)Singles competition1. #2 Mikael Torpegaard (OSU 15.21) def. Collin Altamirano (UVA 14.33) 6-3, 7-6(3)2. #28 Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (UVA 14.87) def. #8 Hugo Di Feo (OSU 14.02) 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-23. JJ Wolf (OSU 14.43) vs. Carl Soderlund (UVA 14.61) 3-6, 7-6(3), 5-3*4. #64 JC Aragone (UVA 14.43) def. #47 Herkko Pollanen (OSU 13.96) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4)5. #77 Martin Joyce (OSU 13.63) vs. Alex Ritschard (UVA 14.53) 3-6, 7-5, 6-5*...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 20, 2017 | Blog
The finals are set at the 2017 Men’s ITA National Team Indoor Championships and it’ll be the host and top seed Virginia going up against the third seed Ohio State. The opening match of the day between Ohio State and the second seed Wake Forest was just plain wild. There were so many swings back and forth and just when you thought one team was going to pull it out the other came swooping in. Ohio State came into the match with a perfect 12-0 record during the doubles point but Wake Forest was set on giving them their first L. Ohio State’s No. 2 team of Martin Joyce and Hugo Di Feo came out with guns blazin’ as they broke Alan...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 19, 2017 | Blog
The second day of the 2017 Men’s ITA National Team Indoor Championships brought us two thrilling main draw matches and two that were over shortly after they started. All four semifinalists were top five seeds with three hailing from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the fourth comes from the Big Ten.We’ll start off with one of the two thrillers as the No. 4 seed California took on the No. 5 seed North Carolina. At last year’s NTIs, North Carolina made a habit of winning matches after dropping the doubles point and it seems like that tradition has continued this year. Cal jumped out to early break leads on all three courts with Andre Goransson...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 18, 2017 | Blog
The opening day of the 2017 Men’s National Team Indoor Championships is in the books and it was an action packed day that saw one exciting dual-match after another. Each of the four time slots had at least one close match and the 3:30 time slot had two close ones. The top two seeds, Virginia and Wake Forest, faced the least resistance while the No. 3 seed Ohio State faced some resistance but managed to close out enough courts before Oklahoma could get on the board. The UCLA/USC match was the only one to finish with a 4-3 score while four matches finished 4-2.There were two seeded upsets on the day with the biggest one coming in the morning session when...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 17, 2017 | Blog
Tulane went 12 years without beating LSU but now the Green Wave have done it two years in a row after they defeated LSU on Thursday night by a 4-2 score. LSU took the doubles point with quick wins at No. 1 and No. 2 but Tulane rebounded in singles by taking four opening sets. Constantin Schmitz, Ewan Moore, and Tim Ruetzel won in straight sets for Tulane while Gabor Csonka won in straight sets for LSU. Tulane sophomore Tyler Schick clinched the victory with a come from behind 1-6, 7-5, 6-0 win at No. 4 while the match at No. 2 was abandoned with Sebastian Rey up a set.Nice 4-2 win over LSU! #RollWave pic.twitter.com/zGZOzLO2rn— Tulane Men’s Tennis...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 15, 2017 | Blog
It’s preview time!! The 2017 Men’s National Team Indoor Championships get underway on Friday morning at 9 a.m. ET at the Boar’s Head Sport Club in Charlottesville, Virginia. The top seeded Virginia Cavaliers were the only team that didn’t have to qualify since they got an automatic berth as the host while each of the other 15 participants had to win a Kick-Off Weekend regional three weeks ago. Each team is guaranteed three matches with consolation matches played on Saturday and Sunday for teams that lost on Friday and Saturday. Nine schools in the draw have won an NTI Championship and five of them have won more than one. UCLA leads the...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 15, 2017 | Blog
Wednesday was ranking release day with the USTA releasing its second top 25 while the ITA released just the women’s team rankings (no men’s team rankings this week due to the NTIs). I’ll start with the ITA rankings which kept Florida at No. 1 after the Gators won their first National Team Indoor Championship since 1999. North Carolina stayed at No. 2 after a runner-up finish at the NTIs while the two semifinalists, Georgia and Ohio State, each moved up three spots to No. 3 and No. 4 respectively. Texas Tech made the biggest jump going from No. 12 to No. 7 after the Red Raiders defeated Vanderbilt and Pepperdine. Michigan and Auburn each...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 15, 2017 | Blog
Virginia got a last minute warmup for the National Team Indoors by welcoming in No. 17 Illinois for a somewhat rare mid-week match in Charlottesville. Virginia claimed a quick 6-2 win from Luca Corinteli and Carl Soderlund at No. 1 doubles and it looked like Illinois would get a quick win at No. 3 when Zeke Clark and Gui Gomes led 5-2* but Virginia’s Collin Altamirano and JC Aragone came roaring back to win 7-6(4). The match at No. 2 doubles was halted just as the tiebreak was ready to get started. In singles play, Virginia went up early breaks at No. 2, No. 4, and No. 5 while Illinois went up early breaks at No. 1 and No. 3. Virginia senior...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 14, 2017 | Blog
After a busy weekend there were a handful of matches on Monday including one match that started on Sunday but finished on Monday due to rain. Seventh-ranked UCLA played its first indoor match of the year at Tulsa and judging by the final score it looks like they’ll be ready to go when they begin the National Team Indoors on Friday. While many of the singles matches weren’t very close the doubles decider at No. 1 was as close as it gets. Tulsa’s Dominic Bechard and Okkie Kellerman had a golden opportunity to serve for the match when they went up 0/40 on Evan Zhu’s 5-5 service game however Zhu and Martin Redlicki battled back to get it to...
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