by Bobby Knight | Feb 14, 2017 | Blog
For the first time in 18 years the Women’s National Team Indoor Championship is coming back to Gainesville after the top ranked and No. 1 seed Florida Gators held off second ranked/seed North Carolina 4-2. Florida got off to a great start in doubles by going up early breaks at No. 2 and No. 3 and it would only take 21 minutes for Florida’s Josie Kuhlman and Belinda Woolcock to win 6-0 at No. 3. Florida’s Ingrid Neel and Anna Danilina jumped out to a 2-0 lead at No. 2 and they’d add one more break to go up 5-2 and then Danilina would hold on the no-ad point to clinch the doubles point with a 6-2 win. The match at No. 1 was abandoned with...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 13, 2017 | Blog
The Sunday afternoon men’s schedule was packed to the brim with three top 25 teams facing each other plus several other ranked teams would be tested against stiff competition. Last season Wake Forest went to Stillwater in late January and got beat so when they made the return trip on Sunday they had a pretty good idea of what was in store. Wake Forest jumped out to the early 1-0 lead by taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 and then less than an hour later the lead would grow even more. Wake sophomore Petros Chrysochos was nearly flawless in a 6-0, 6-1 win over Lukas Finzelberg at No. 2 and then junior Skander Mansouri made it 3-0 after...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 13, 2017 | Blog
The finals are set at the 2017 Women’s National Team Indoor Championships and after three days of action it has all come down to the top seed Florida and the second seed North Carolina. In the opening semifinal of the day at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center, North Carolina and the No. 7 seed Ohio State went toe-to-toe for just under three hours. North Carolina struck first during the doubles point with Hayley Carter and Sara Daavettila winning 6-2 at No. 1 but Ohio State’s Francesca Di Lorenzo and Miho Kowase countered with a 6-4 win at No. 2. The decider at No. 3 went back and forth with North Carolina’s Alexa Graham and Chloe...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 12, 2017 | Blog
The defending champs had their home opener on Saturday and they didn’t disappoint the crowd of over 600 as #1 Virginia outmuscled #6 Florida 5-2. Virginia struggled in doubles last week against Vanderbilt and Kentucky but against Florida they got off to quick starts at No. 2 and No. 3 and won both courts to take the early 1-0 lead. Florida would jump out to break leads on four different courts in singles but they’d only be able to claim two first sets as Virginia made its move. Virginia junior Henrik Wiersholm extended the lead to 2-0 with a straight set win over Maxx Lipman at No. 6. The first set had multiple breaks with Lipman leading most...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 11, 2017 | Blog
The battle of the OSU’s ended up being the closest match of the day in New Haven with Ohio State getting the best of Oklahoma State 4-3. Oklahoma State rolled through the doubles point with a 6-2 win at No. 2 and a 6-1 win at No. 3 but Ohio State bounced back in singles and took four opening sets.Oklahoma State’s Aliona Bolsova extended the Cowgirls lead to 2-0 with a straight set win at No. 4 but Ohio State would pick up straight set wins from Francesca Di Lorenzo, Gabriella De Santis, and Ferny Angeles Paz at No. 1, No. 3, and No. 6 to make it 3-2 Ohio State. The other two matches went the distance with Oklahoma State’s Katarina Adamovic...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 11, 2017 | Blog
There was only one men’s match on Friday that took place between ranked teams and it happened in Columbus as No. 3 Ohio State ran its record to 8-0 with an anything but easy 4-1 win over No. 15 Kentucky. The doubles point on the other hand was pretty easy with the Buckeyes winning big at No. 2 and No. 3. Ohio State rode the momentum from the doubles point into singles and took four opening sets but Kentucky managed to get splits on two of those courts. Kentucky’s Nils Ellefsen tied the match with a straight set win at No. 4 but Ohio State countered with straight set wins from Mikael Torpegaard and Herkko Pollanen at No. 1 and No. 5. Each of the...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 11, 2017 | Blog
The opening day of the Women’s National Team Indoor Championships is in the books with seven of the top eight seeds advancing to the quarterfinals. There were some blowouts and some close ones though none of them came down to the deciding court with 4-0 and 4-1 scores accounting for six of the eight results with the other two being 4-2. We’ll start with the one seeding upset of the day which took place at the Tennis and Fitness Center in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Vanderbilt, which is the No. 8 seed, came into the match with a perfect 4-0 record during the doubles point while Texas Tech had only won the point once in four attempts. Many folks...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 10, 2017 | Blog
After a month of dual-match play we have our first major team event of the year as 16 teams descend upon the Connecticut towns of West Haven and Rocky Hill. Yale is this year’s host and therefore the Bulldogs gets an automatic bid into the tournament while the other 15 teams qualified during the ITA’s Kick-Off Weekend two weeks ago. The eight teams with the highest ITA ranking secured a seed in the draw while the other eight teams were slotted at random so that’s why we don’t have a typical 1 versus 16 matchup because normally that would be Florida and Yale. FloTennis will have a live stream for all the matches at the...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 9, 2017 | Blog
For the first time in over a month the ITA released a new set of singles and doubles rankings. Nine of the top ten in the men’s singles rankings stayed the same with Florida sophomore Alfredo Perez the only one able to move into the top 10 at No. 9 while Duke junior Nicolas Alvarez fell out landing at No. 12. The top six in the women’s singles rankings stayed the same though there was some minor shuffling within the six with UNC’s Sara Daavettila and UCLA’s Ena Shibahara moving up one spot each while Vanderbilt’s Astra Sharma fell two spots from No. 2 to No. 4. I have a full breakdown of the singles rankings down below...
by Bobby Knight | Feb 8, 2017 | Blog
Wednesday was a busy day for rankings with the USTA releasing its inaugural top 25 while the ITA released its first singles and doubles rankings in over a month in addition to releasing its men’s top 25 (no women’s team rankings this week due to the NTIs). I’ll start off with the ITA top 25 which kept the same teams at one through four (UVA/Wake/Ohio State/Cal) with North Carolina moving up two spots to No. 5. Florida was the biggest mover of the week rising five spots from No. 11 to No. 6 after defeating USC and UCLA over the weekend. Georgia and Texas A&M took the biggest tumbles with each falling five spots. No teams dropped out...
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