by Bobby Knight | Mar 30, 2016 | Blog
North Carolina retained its top spot but TCU and Virginia swapped spots at No. 2 and No. 3. If TCU’s win over Texas A&M would have counted in these rankings the Horned Frogs would have been the new No. 1. Ohio State is still at No. 4 while UCLA moves up to No. 5 after the previous No. 5 Oklahoma State was upset by SMU.Wake Forest moved up seven spots to No. 6 after picking up a road win at Florida State while Georgia moved up four spots to No. 7 after beating Kentucky. Oklahoma State dropped three spots to No. 8 after losing to SMU while USC dropped one spot to No. 9 after losing at Washington. Texas A&M falls three spots to No. 10 after losing...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 29, 2016 | Blog
What a match it was tonight in College Station between No. 3 TCU and No. 7 Texas A&M. These two former Big 12 rivals went toe-to-toe for three hours and fifteen minutes and in the end the match was decided in a third-set tiebreak at No. 5 singles.TCU Celebrates (Photo by Sarah Lane/Texas A&M Athletics)Texas A&M’s Max Lunkin and Arthur Rinderknech rolled to a 6-2 win at No. 2 doubles but TCU’s Alex Rybakov and Cameron Norrie won 7-5 at No. 3. The doubles point was decided at No. 1 and it was Texas A&M’s new doubles pairing of Aleksandre Bakshi and Jackson Withrow that would take it 7-6(3).Boom! @JacksonWithrow7 and Bakshi win...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 28, 2016 | Blog
North Carolina stays at No. 1 for the second week in a row but TCU leapfrogs past Virginia for No. 2 after its win over Northwestern on Tuesday. This week’s rankings used each teams seven best wins with UNC’s six top-20 wins still by far the best. Below my rankings chart I also did a top 10 that is sorted by each team’s seven best wins with losses not in the equation.Ohio State stays at No. 4 after picking up a road win at Michigan State and a nice home win over Michigan. UCLA moves back up to No. 5 after picking up road wins at Oregon and Washington in conjunction with last week’s No. 5 Oklahoma State losing to SMU which...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 28, 2016 | Blog
Rice was looking to win the Rice Invitational for the ninth year in a row but to achieve that feat it’d have to find a way to beat a top 10 team for the first time in 10 years. Both Rice and Texas Tech beat William & Mary and Drake on Saturday so both were playing well coming into today’s finale.Texas Tech’s Felipe Soares and Hugo Dojas won 6-4 at No. 1 doubles but Rice’s Jake Hansen and Emanuel Llamas came back from *1-4 down to win 7-5 at No. 3. Rice’s Jamie Malik and Adam Gustafsson trailed 6-3 in the tiebreak at No. 3 but would fight off a total of five match points to win a marathon tiebreak 14-12 to give Rice the...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 27, 2016 | Blog
The hits keep on coming and on today’s playlists we heard the 1966 classic Mustang Sally after No. 36 SMU ran all over No. 5 Oklahoma State 4-0.SMU jumped out to the early 1-0 lead after taking the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 and then the Mustangs claimed four opening sets in singles. SMU’s Nate Lammons made it 2-0 with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Julian Cash at No. 1 and then Hunter Johnson put the Mustangs a point away from clinching with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Arjun Kadhe at No. 2. Redshirt junior Tony Russell would bring it home for SMU with a 7-6, 6-3 upset win over Lukas Finzelberg at No. 5.Note: Russell’s win over Finzelberg was...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 26, 2016 | Blog
Another Friday brought us another round of stunning upsets as a pair of top 10 teams went down on the road.Vanderbilt won its third consecutive match by a 4-3 score as it stunned No. 7 Texas A&M 4-3. The Commodores took the doubles point when Tate Allwardt and Baker Newman knocked off Max Lunkin and AJ Catanzariti 7-6(5) at No. 2.Texas A&M took opening sets at 2, 3, 5, and 6 while Vandy got the opening set at 1 and 4. Max Lunkin won easily at No. 6 with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Alex Ross and Shane Vinsant would put the Aggies ahead with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Rhys Johnson at No. 2.Vandy’s Baker Newman tied the match at 2-2 with a 6-4, 6-3 win over AJ...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 25, 2016 | Blog
Most of the bigger conferences are into the middle of conference play while some of the smaller ones are still playing out of conference.There are two top 25 matchups on Friday with No. 24 Mississippi State hosting No. 16 Florida while No. 23 Michigan welcomes in No. 25 Penn State.In my opinion the biggest match of the day in the Big Ten isn’t the Michigan/Penn State match but rather the one between Iowa and Wisconsin. Neither team is going to win the conference this year so to get into the NCAAs as an at-large these guys will need to be ranked in the low 40s and if you want to stay in the low 40s or better you have to win these types of matches. I do...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 25, 2016 | Blog
The hosts of this year’s NCAAs met the hosts of last year’s NCAAs on Thursday night and in a mild surprise it was Tulsa defeating Baylor 4-3.Baylor played without Will Little, who normally plays at No. 1 doubles and No. 4 singles, and despite a valiant effort it couldn’t get it done at home. Tulsa took the all-important doubles point with Majed Kilani and Carlos Bautista winning the decider at No. 3 doubles 7-6(2).Each team picked up three first sets in singles but only two of them would finish in straight sets. Tulsa freshman Francois Kellerman won over Baylor walk-on Tyler Stayer 6-4, 6-1 to put the Golden Hurricane up 2-0 but Baylor...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 25, 2016 | Blog
When the last set of ITA singles rankings came out I did a comparison between them and the UTR rankings so I thought I’d do it again this time. Below is a chart of the top 25 men and women sorted by UTR and ITA rankings. Down below the table I also tackled the team rankings using the UTR Power 6 which is the combined UTR of the top 6 singles players. I had to do some tweaking to these because there are several guys, in a team’s top 6, that aren’t playing for one reason or another that I had to pull out.Here are some women’s ranking notables:North Carolina’s Hayley Carter is No. 1 in both while Virginia’s...
by Bobby Knight | Mar 24, 2016 | Blog
A great season for Arkansas got even better on Wednesday night when the Razorbacks beat Texas for the first time since 2004 and won in Austin for the first time since 1988. Arkansas took the doubles point by winning the deciding match at No. 1 in a tiebreak but Texas rebounded by taking four opening sets in singles.Adrian Ortiz bum-rushed Santiago Munoz 6-1, 6-0 at No. 3 and then Michael Riechmann put Texas ahead with a 7-6, 6-4 win over Adam Sanjurjo at No. 5. Arkansas’s Giammarco Micolani tied the match at 2-all with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Rodrigo Banzer at No. 4 and then Jose Salazar put the Hogs ahead with a come from behind 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 win over Texas...
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