Friday Preview – Va Tech at Wake, USC vs. Tulsa, + Other Storylines

As the excitement of the NCAA Basketball Tournament sweeps the nation I’m sure we’ll see some excitement on the tennis courts this weekend as well.  Wake Forest hosts Virginia Tech in a top 16 showdown, 6 top 30 teams will be in Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge, and 7 top 50 teams are in San Diego for the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley Classic.  If you can’t make it out in person follow along with the live scoring/update links down below.

It appears they have live streaming on 2 of the courts at Indian Wells – click here for those streams.

#16 Virginia Tech (12-1) at #12 Wake Forest (11-4) – 4pm est – Virginia Tech has been the biggest surprise of the season so far winning 12 of 13 but they’ll have to leave the comforts of home for just the 4th time this year.  Wake Forest is on a roll as of late having won 3 straight 7-0 matches with the last 2 coming against a pair of top 30 teams (Florida St & Louisville).  Wake is 11-4 in doubles but has only won once when dropping the point (Clemson); conversely they’ve only lost once when winning the doubles point (Texas).  Virginia Tech is 8-5 in doubles and has come back to win 4 times after dropping the point (Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame, Duke).

FYI, the number beside the player’s school is the player’s Universal Tennis Rating as of March 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Projected Singles Lineups
1.  #55 Amerigo Contini (VT 14.42) vs. #63 Noah Rubin (WF 14.80)
2.  #40 Andreas Bjerrehus (VT 13.81) vs. #12 Romain Bogaerts (WF 14.40)
3.  #98 Joao Monteiro (VT 13.85) vs. #69 Jonathan Ho (WF 13.56)
4.  Hunter Koontz (VT 13.62) vs. Skander Mansouri (WF 13.30)
5.  Edoardo Tessaro (VT 13.04) vs. Christian Seraphim (WF 13.74)
6.  Florian Nicoud (VT 13.38) vs. Maksim Kan (WF 13.28)

Projected Doubles Lineups
1. #64 Contini/Bjerrehus (VT) vs. #13 Seraphim/Mansouri (WF)
2. Monteiro/Tessaro (VT) vs. Rubin/Ho (WF)
3. Koontz/Nicoud (VT) vs. Keivon Tabrizi/Bogaerts (WF)

#1 singles – #55 Amerigo Contini is 9-1 on the year in dual match play and 1-1 against ranked opponents (#91 Hunter Harrington-W, #22 Quentin Monaghan-L) while #63 Noah Rubin is 8-2 on the year including 4-2 against ranked opponents with notable wins against ITA #1 Sebastian Stiefelmeyer and #34 Jason Tahir.  Prediction: Rubin in 2

#2 singles – #40 Andreas Bjerrehus is 11-1 in dual match play and 1-1 against ranked foes (#11 Nicolas Alvarez-W, #24 Ronnie Schneider-L) and is riding a 9-match winning streak while #12 Romain Bogaerts is 10-3 overall and 4-3 against ranked foes with notable wins against #3 Ryan Shane and #31 Cameron Norrie (all 3 losses were to top 11 players).  Prediction: Bogaerts in 3

#3 singles – #98 Joao Monteiro is 7-1 in dual match play splitting time between 3 and 4 and he won against his only ranked opponent, #34 Jason Tahir, while #69 Jonathan Ho is 11-4 splitting time between 3 and 4 with a 1-3 record against ranked opponents (L’s-#27 Mitchell Frank, #39 Nick Chappell, #98 Jack Schipanski. W-#60 Adrien Berkowicz). Prediction: Ho in 3.

#4 singles – Hunter Koontz is a perfect 11-0 splitting time between 3 and 4 with his only match against a ranked opponent going unfinished (#57 Brett Clark 5-4 in 3rd) while Skander Mansouri is 7-6 splitting time between 3 and 4 with a 1-3 record against ranked foes (L’s-#6 Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, #26 Dane Webb, #52 Lloyd Glasspool, W-#79 Michael Rinaldi).  Prediction: Koontz in 2.

#5 singles – Edoardo Tessaro is 10-1 playing at 3, 4, and 5 while Christian Seraphim is 10-4 playing primarily at 5.  Prediction: Tassaro in 3

#6 singles – Florian Nicoud is 8-2 splitting time between 4, 5, and 6 while Maksim Kan is 7-3 playing primarily at 6.  Prediction: Kan in 2.

Virginia Tech has only faced 2 teams in the Top 35 so far while Wake has already faced 8 so I think that big match experience will pay off Wake Forest and will expose Virginia Tech a tad.  I think the Hokies keep it close on several courts but the better team will win this one.  Prediction: Wake Forest 5-2

#4 USC (12-2) vs. #20 Tulsa (12-7) – 4:30pm est/1:30pm pst – USC had to be happy when they saw the draw released for the BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge because it’ll give them a chance to avenge one of the biggest shockers in recent history (box score below). USC will be chomping at the bit for some payback and payback is exactly what they’ll get because I don’t see anyway that we see a repeat performance from February 28th.  I see the Trojans taking the doubles point and then picking up straight set wins from Eric Johnson, Jonny Wang, and Max De Vroome.  Prediction: USC 4-0