The owners of 38 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Team National Championships will meet on Friday afternoon in Los Angeles as the #1 USC Trojans host the #37 Stanford Cardinal.
USC’s media guide shows they lead the all-time series 109-76 with the 1st match played in 1925 while Stanford’s shows USC leads it 63-59 with the 1st match coming in 1967. I’d have to go with USC’s as the more accurate source since I know Stanford was playing tennis long before 1967. Stanford has won 17 NCAA Championships with the last coming in 2000 while USC has won 21 NCAA Championships including 5 of the last 6.
USC has won 8 straight in the series with Stanford’s last win over SC coming back in 2011 at the National Indoors. This USC team is full of experience with the top 4 spots in the singles lineup occupied by seniors along with a junior and a sophomore at 5 and 6. Stanford on the other hand is starting 3 freshmen, a senior, and 2 juniors.
Let’s breakdown the individual match-ups and see if Stanford has any shot at getting close to 4 points against the #1 Trojans.
Stanford freshman #26 Tom Fawcett has turned some heads so far this year with his stellar play which includes 3 wins over top 60 opponents and he is currently the 3rd highest ranked freshman in the latest rankings behind only Duke’s #8 Nicolas Alvarez and Georgia’s #17 Wayne Montgomery. USC senior Yannick Hanfmann just seems to keep plugging along with 11 of his 13 wins over ranked opponents with 8 of those 11 over top 50 opponents. Both of these guys are undefeated in dual match play so somebody has to lose – I’ll take experience over youth.
Stanford’s David Wilczynski has done something you don’t see too often – he has played at every spot in the singles lineup after starting the year at 6 and has since played at 5, 4, 3, 2, and this past Tuesday against Hawaii he played at 1 so that’s 6 different positions in 7 matches. The reason for the upward slide has been strictly performance based as all his dual match wins have been blowouts with the lone loss coming in 3 sets to Cal’s Filip Bergevi. One item to note is that while the wins have been impressive only 1 has been over a ranked opponent (#123 Perez-Blanco). Wilczynski’s opponent will be #20 Roberto Quiroz who already has 7 wins over ranked opponents and 5 of those over top 50 opponents. Quiroz is just too seasoned for the Cardinal freshman and will take this one in 2.
Stanford’s John Morrissey spent the last 2 years playing atop the Cardinal singles lineup but has been pushed down to #3 after a slow start to the year in conjunction with the strong play of both Fawcett and Wilczynski. Wang had another great fall with 4 ranked wins but has dropped 3 of his last 4 though all 3 losses have been against top 80 opponents. I give Morrissey a decent chance in this one but I think Wang pulls it out in 3.
USC’s Eric Johnson had a fairly substandard fall but the light switch flipped on at the start of the dual match season as Johnson has now won 8 of 9 including 6 straight with the last 5 in straight sets against some tough competition. Stanford’s Maciek Romanowicz really came out of the gate slow dropping 5 of 8 then he dropped his 1st 3 dual matches before pulling off an improbable comeback from 2-5 down in the 3rd last Saturday against Cal’s J.T. Nishimura. It wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson was moved up to 3 and Wang dropped to 4 but if Johnson plays at 4 he takes this one in straights.
Stanford’s David Hsu had a strong fall going 8-2 but since the 1st of the year he’s just 2-4. USC’s Max De Vroome has had an awkward start to the spring with just 4 of 8 matches reaching a conclusion with the last one to finish being De Vroome’s lone loss to Oklahoma’s Alex Ghilea. If the Hsu from the fall was playing this match I’d take him in 3, but he doesn’t seem 100% right now so I’ll take the big Dutchman in 2.
USC’s Nick Crystal has been on fire this year going undefeated in dual match play along with a stout 11-3 record in the individual portion of the season that included wins over Tom Fawcett, Andre Goransson, Max De Vroome, and his potential Stanford opponent Nolan Paige. Paige has won 4 straight after dropping his 1st 2 dual matches however those 4 opponents have been unranked. I’ll go with Crystal in 2.
Stanford has an improved team but they’re a year away from taking out a team like USC. Prediction: USC 6-1
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