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Sunday Recap: Texas A&M Weathers The Storm & Drake Rises Out Of The Valley

by | Apr 20, 2015 | Blog | 3 comments

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Championship Sunday (Part 1) lived up to the advance billing with the SEC and Missouri Valley delivering heart pounding thrillers.

When #1 and #2 play you expect to see a great match and that’s what Georgia and Texas A&M delivered on Sunday afternoon in College Station.  Texas A&M got off to a fast start in doubles by going up early breaks at 2 and 3 and once A&M had the lead on those courts they would not relinquish it the rest of the way.  The A&M #3 duo of AJ Catanzariti/Arthur Rinderknech finished first winning 6-3 then just as Georgia’s #1 team of Austin Smith and Ben Wagland were 6-3 winners A&M’s #2 team of Jeremy Efferding and Jordan Szabo would clinch the point with a 6-3 win themselves.  
Texas A&M carried the momentum from doubles over to singles as they jumped out to early break leads at #1, #5 and #6 singles while Georgia got the early break lead at #4. Texas A&M’s AJ Catanzariti would take the first set at #5 and Shane Vinsant and “Artillery” Arthur Rinderknech would get late breaks to take the opening set 6-4 at #2 and #3.  Georgia’s Ben Wagland cruised to a 6-2 opening set at #4 and both Austin Smith and Paul Oosterbaan would come back from a break down to claim the opening sets at #1 and #6.  Smith was down 4-2 before rallying to win the set 7-6(5) while Oosterbaan came back from 5-2 down to take the set 7-5.


Ben Wagland would tie the match at 1-1 as he finished off Harrison Adams 6-2, 6-3 at #4 singles but shortly thereafter AJ Catanzariti would make it 2-1 A&M as he beat Nick Wood 6-3, 6-4 at #5 singles.  Arthur Rinderknech extended the lead to 3-1 with a 6-4, 6-4 win at #3 singles over Nathan Pasha and when Shane Vinsant broke Wayne Montgomery to go up 6-4, 6-5 it looked the match would be over fairly quickly. Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery wouldn’t go away and would break back from 15-40 and would then take the tiebreak 7-2 to send it to a 3rd set.

Just as Jeremy Efferding forced a 3rd set at #1, Georgia’s Paul Oosterbaan would close out Jordi Aconada at #6 singles 7-5, 7-5 which would draw Georgia to within 3-2.

The SEC Championship would be decided by a pair of 3rd sets at #1 and #2 singles and #1 singles started off with a slew of breaks with neither Efferding or Smith able to hold serve.  Smith would finally break the streak by holding for 4-3 then after another set of holds Smith would lead 5-4. Over at #2, Wayne Montgomery would break Shane Vinsant to go up 4-3 and would then hold for 5-3. Just as it looked like Georgia might close this one out the match would get halted due to lightning and then a few minutes later the skies would open up and it started to rain.

Roughly 2 hours later play would resume and both Jeremy Efferding and Shane Vinsant were more than ready to go.  Efferding would get an easy hold for 5-5 then would break Smith to go up 6-5. Vinsant got an easy hold for 5-4 then broke Montgomery to tie it at 5 and would follow that up with another hold for 6-5. Back at #1 Jeremy Efferding would go up 40-15 then on match point he’d fire an ace out wide to seal the Championship for Texas A&M (video clip below via the SEC).  Texas A&M would win all 6 games after the resumption of the weather delay and that was the difference in the match.  

 Texas A&M recap
“This title feels just as good as the first, we were able to come out on top of a very good and well coached Georgia team, Texas A&M men’s tennis head coach Steve Denton said. We got off to a good start in doubles and looked like we could potentially run away with it, but Georgia came back and put us on our heels. Then the rains came and our guys came out of the locker room with an unbelievable attitude and resolve to win this championship
“It was really big for us to come out and put our stamp on this match, Denton added. “Getting that doubles point proved really big, our number two team did a great job against two really good players that play big and serve big. We were able to get a couple breaks and help secure that point. AJ and Arthur, the two freshman, have really been coming through for us all season.
“The two freshmen carried over their play from the doubles into the singles getting our first two singles points today, Denton said. “They are a major reason we were in a position to play for the championship much.
“The clinch for Jeremy could not have happened to a better player and a better person, Denton said. “He is a leader and has been an MVP for this team all season. It was an unbelievable senior moment for him and he will remember this for the rest of his life. Playing at home against a great player on court one in front of a great crowd and the way he played those last three games, I have not seen a player play better than that under those kind of circumstances.
Georgia recap
“This was one of the best collegiate matches I have been around,” said head coach Manuel Diaz. “I’m proud of our guys. They fought very hard against a very tough opponent today, and the crowd here was very loud. We seemed to have a lot of momentum when the match was suspended, but we didn’t handle the delay as well as they did, and that obviously was the difference. Texas A&M is a very good team and they got after it when it mattered most. They earned it today; we didn’t give it to them. I think we improved as a team, but there isn’t a lot of consolation when you lose in the final of a championship. But now we’ll turn our focus to the NCAA Championships.”
FYI, the number beside the player’s school is the player’s Universal Tennis Rating as of April 19th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

#6 Texas A&M 4, #5 Georgia 2
Apr 19, 2015 at College Station, TX (George P Mitchell Tennis Center)
Singles competition
1. #61 Jeremy Efferding (TAMU 14.25) def. #29 Austin Smith (UGA 14.29) 6-7(5), 6-1, 7-5
2. #69 Shane Vinsant (TAMU 14.16) vs. #28 Wayne Montgomery (UGA 14.50) 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-5*
3. Arthur Rinderknech (TAMU 14.20) def. #26 Nathan Pasha (UGA 14.30) 6-4, 6-4
4. Ben Wagland (UGA 13.29) def. #55 Harrison Adams (TAMU 13.60) 6-2, 6-3
5. #93 AJ Catanzariti (TAMU 14.18) def. Nick Wood (UGA 13.93) 6-3, 6-4
6. Paul Oosterbaan (UGA 13.76) def. Jordi Arconada (TAMU 13.45) 7-5, 7-5
Doubles competition
1. #1 Ben Wagland/Austin Smith (UGA) def. #11 Adams/Vinsant (TAMU) 6-3
2. #46 Jeremy Efferding/Jordan Szabo (TAMU) def. Pasha/Oosterbaan (UGA) 6-3
3. AJ Catanzariti/Arthur Rinderknech (TAMU) def. Montgomery/Wood (UGA) 6-3
Match Notes:
Georgia 21-4; National ranking #5
Texas A&M 21-4; National ranking #6
Order of finish: Doubles (3,1,2); Singles (4,5,3,6,1)
SEC Tournament Championship

T-3:29

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After 2 sunny days here in St. Louis, rain was in the forecast so the Championship was moved indoors to the Kings Point Racquet Club in Belleville, Illinois.  Wichita State probably didn’t mind the venue change after the Shockers had to sweat out a 4-2 win over UMBC on Saturday.

Wichita State #1 doubles team of Tomislav Gregurovic and Tin Ostojic went up an early break at #1 and added another break later to take the match 8-4.


Drake’s #3 team of Matt Frost and Ravi Patel got the early break at #3 and they would get another one here to go up 6-3.  After giving one break back Frost and Patel would serve it out to take it 8-6.


In the deciding court at #2, Wichita State’s Ilija Cuic and Guillermo De Vilchez looked primed to take the point when they lead 7-6 and were up 0-40 on Alen Salibasic serve. Salibasic and his partner Ben Mullis would dig deep and gut out the next 5 points to get the hold and force the tiebreak. Below is game point for 7-7 as Salibasic brings the heat

Drake would jump out to a 4-2 lead in the TB off this Salibasic overhead

but Wichita State would storm back to take the next 4 points to go up 6-4 as Guillermo De Vilchez cleaned up at the net.

On match point Wichita State’s Ilija Cuic would start the point and then finish it with an overhead to give the Shockers the doubles point and the early 1-0 lead.

The first set at #1 was nip and tuck and would end up heading to a tiebreak.  In the tiebreak WSU’s Tin Ostojic went up 4-1 only to drop 5 of the next 6 points to face a set point.  Ostojic won the next point on his serve to even it at 6 but would drop the next point to face another set point but this time it was Drake’s Alen Salibasic that was serving.  Ostojic would win both points on the Salibasic serve and then closed out the set when Salibasic put this service return into the net

There were a total of 5 breaks of serve in the 1st set at #2 singles – 3 breaks by WSU’s Ilija Cuic and 2 by Drake’s Ben Lott.  Below are clips of Lott’s 2 breaks.

Wichita State would also pick up 1st sets at #4 and #5 and in fact Miroslav Herzan would finish off his match against Calum MacGeoch at #5 singles before the 1st sets wrapped up on half the courts. Herzan only needed 45 minutes to win the match 6-1, 6-0.  Below is the end of that one along with set point on #4:

Drake would pick up 1st sets on #3 and #6 and here is set point at #3 for Drake’s Matt Frost

So at this point things were looking pretty good for Wichita State because the Shockers had a 2-0 lead plus they led on 3 of the remaining 5 courts when they only needed 2 of them to win.

Drake’s guys had to make a decision on whether to pack it in or fight back and they of course chose the latter and began making inroads on several courts early in the 2nd set.

Drake’s Alen Salibasic, Ben Lott, and Ravi Patel would each take the 2nd set after dropping the 1st. Below is my favorite clip of the day – it took place just after Ben Lott broke Ilija Cuic to go up 6-5 in the 2nd set at #2 – it’s just 5 seconds long but up at the top of the screen you have Lott doing the lawnmower and at the bottom you have Cuic debating whether to smash his stick into a thousand pieces.

Wichita State’s Tomislav Gregurovic would get the equalizer at #3 despite being hobbled by an upper thigh injury that he sustained at 5-5 in the 2nd.  Here is his set point in the 2nd set at #3:

After sustaining the injury Gregurovic alternated between serving underhanded and tapping 30 mph serves for the remainder of the match but unbelievably he actually jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the 3rd before Matt Frost finally composed himself to reel off the final 6 games of the match to take it 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2.  Below are clips of the Gregurovic serve and Frost clinching.

Moments after Frost clinched, Alen Salibasic would go up a break on #1 and then a few games later he served out the match for a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 win over Tin Ostojic which would put Drake up 3-2.  No video on this one because the score hadn’t been updated and I didn’t realize Salisbasic was serving for it.

Despite dropping the 2nd set Wichita State’s Ilija Cuic would pull away in the 3rd set and take it 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 to tie the match at 3-3.  Below is a clip of match point.

The stage was then set for some serious, and I mean serious, drama in the deciding match at #4 singles between Drake’s Ravi Patel and Wichita State’s Guillermo De Vilchez.  All eyes turned to the remaining court with De Vilchez serving at 3-4 and the Shocker senior quickly went down 0-30. After getting it back to 30-all he missed a forehand wide giving Patel a break point but Patel would then go long on a forehand to bring it to deuce.  De Vilchez would then push another forehand long to give Patel a 2nd break point before De Vilchez came up with 3 nice shots in a row to hold for 4-4.

Ravi Patel would then go down 0-30 on his 4-4 service game before a pair of De Vilchez forehand errors brought it back to 30-all.  De Vilchez would then hit a forehand that Patel couldn’t handle to bring up break point and on the next point Patel pushed a volley wide to give De Vilchez the break.

The Shocker faithful could sense the victory with De Vilchez serving for the match up 5-4 but you knew it wasn’t going to end that easily.  After each player hit one long, on the 15-all point Patel would hit one off his frame that landed funny which caused De Vilchez to completely whiff on the ball to make it 15-30.  De Vilchez then landed a big forehand for 30-30 and followed that up with a service winner to bring up match point at 40-30.  De Vilchez would then misfire badly on a forehand at the end of a long rally (clip below) to make it deuce.  If you’ll notice about midway through the rally Patel floats one, that on first glance looks like its going to sale wide and in fact you’ll see the Wichita State assistant running in to start celebrating, but De Vilchez plays the ball.  On the next point De Vilchez shanked a forehand to give Patel a break point and then he would then put one into the net to give Patel the break to put it back on serve at 5-all.

De Vilchez would go up 0-15 on a forehand winner but then he would proceed to push a forehand wide and long on the next 2 points to make it 30-15 Patel.  De Vilchez would then make it 30-all after putting a volley away at the net but on the next point De Vilchez appeared to be just long on a forehand on the far side of the court.  Patel called the shot out but De Vilchez immediately appealed to the chair.  Since the match was moved indoors at the last minute they didn’t have actual chairs for the chair umpires to sit in so they were standing at court level which made it tough to overrule anything that was further away than the service line or the side line they were standing on.  The chair told De Vilchez that she couldn’t overrule it because of the angle and Patel’s call would stand.  De Vilchez and the the Shocker coaches went nuts and a lengthy 5 minute discussion ensued.  In the previous video clip you’ll notice there was an additional umpire calling the sideline opposite the chair however there wasn’t one in position to call the baseline.  Once play resumed Patel hit a service winner to get the hold for 6-5. At this point all the remaining chair umpires covered all the available lines to ensure that what happened earlier wouldn’t happen again.

If you thought that exchange at 30-all was crazy wait until what happens next.  De Vilchez would start off his 5-6 service game by falling behind 0-15 after putting an off balance forehand into the net. De Vilchez would then hit a forehand winner to finish off a 15+ shot rally and he’d follow that up by working Patel all over the place before Patel went long on a backhand to make it 30-15.  De Vilchez then yanked a forehand wide on a point that he was seemingly in control of to make it 30-all but he redeemed himself on the next point when Patel put the 5th shot of the rally into the net to make it 40-30. After a De Vilchez forehand error made it deuce, Patel would get overruled on a line call which also happened to be his 4th overrule.  Since it was his 4th overruled that meant it was a game penalty which made it 6-all however Wichita State was under the impression that they got both the point penalty and a game penalty which would have made it game, set, match, championship.  De Vilchez told the rest of the players to come down from the balcony to celebrate because he and the coaches thought the match was over.  I was also told there was some confusion on the Wichita State side about the game score at the time of the overrule – they were thinking it was 40-30 but it was definitely deuce because I was tracking it point by point.  I didn’t get a chance to talk to the Wichita State coaches after the match to hear their side of the story so if they happen to read this send me a message and I’ll add the comments to the story.  

Note: According to the rulebook the first two overrules are warnings, the third is a point penalty, and the fourth is a game penalty.

So after a good 10 minutes of every chair umpire meeting and discussing the situation it was determined that it was indeed 6-6 and the match finally resumed.  The first 4 points of the tiebreak went to the server then at 2-2 with Ravi Patel serving he got drawn into the net and De Vilchez passed him up the line to go up 3-2.  De Vilchez would then go well long on a forehand to make it 3-all before hitting a forehand winner to make it 4-3.  There were a couple of shots that were close to the being out however Patel had no choice but to play everything because a 5th overrule would’ve been an automatic disqualification.  Patel would hit a service winner for 4-all and would follow that up with a backhand winner down the line for 5-4.  De Vilchez then forced a Patel error for 5-all before going long on a forehand on the next point which made it match point for Drake on the Patel serve.  Patel landed his 1st serve and De Vilchez’s return was long and with that Drake had pulled off the improbable 4-3 win to capture the Missouri Valley Championship.


Drake recap
Wichita State recap

FYI, the number beside the player’s school is the player’s Universal Tennis Rating as of April 18th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Drake University 4, Wichita State 3
04/19/2015 at Belleville, Ill. (Kings Point Tennis Center)
Singles
1. Alen Salibasic (DU 13.70) def. Tin Ostojic (WSU 13.55) 6-7(7), 6-3, 6-4
2. Ilija Cuic (WSU 13.09) def. Ben Lott (DU 13.70) 6-4, 5-7, 6-3
3. Matt Frost (DU 13.10) def. Tomislav Gregurovic (WSU 12.88) 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2
4. Ravi Patel (DU 13.55) def. Guillermo De Vilchez (WSU 12.34) 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-6 (5)
5. Miroslav Herzan (WSU 12.38) def. Calum MacGeoch (DU 12.58) 6-1, 6-0
6. Ben Mullis (DU 13.03) def. Jocelyn DeVilliers (WSU 12.63) 7-5, 6-3
Doubles
1. Tomislav Gregurovic/Tin Ostojic (WSU) def. Ben Lott/Bayo Philips (DU) 8-4
2. Ilija Cuic/Guillermo De Vilchez (WSU) def. Alen Salibasic/Ben Mullis (DU) 8-7(5)
3. Matt Frost/Ravi Patel (DU) def. Jocelyn DeVilliers/Miroslav Herzan (WSU) 8-6
Match Notes
Wichita State 19-7
Drake University 24-6
Order of finish: Doubles (1,3,2); Singles (5,6,3,1,2,4)
T-4:53

I also set up and ran live scoring for the event via a google doc and it seemed to work well from what I was told.

I’ll update this post with some more conference champions on Monday along with my rankings projections though it’ll be a little later in the morning.  

Conference Tournaments:

American Athletic Conference (Tulsa, OK) – The #1 seed South Florida ran through #2 Tulsa 4-0 – a few video clips via the American:

USF recap
Tulsa recap

#1 USF 4, #2 Tulsa 0
American Athletic Conference Championship Match
4/19/15 at Tulsa, Okla. (Michael D. Case Tennis Center)
Doubles Competition
1. No. 31 Oliver Pramming/Justin Roberts (USF) def. Or Ram-Harel/Alejandro Espejo (TU), 6-3
2. Sasha Gozun/Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF) def. Matthew Kirby/Dylan McCloskey (TU), 6-3
3. Juan Matias Gonzalez/Carlos Bautista (TU) def. Roberto Cid/Ignacio Gonzalez-Muniz (USF), 6-3
(Order of Finish: 2,3,1*)
Singles Competition
1. #22 Roberto Cid (USF) vs. #27 Or Ram-Harel (TU) 6-2, 6-6, unf. 
2. Oliver Pramming (USF) def. No. 80 Alejandro Espejo (TU), 6-4, 6-3
3. Mitchell Pritchard (TU) vs. Sasha Gozun (USF) 3-6, 6-3, 6-6, unf.
4. Ignacio Gonzalez-Muniz (USF) def. Juan Matias Gonzalez (TU) 7-5, 6-2
5. Justin Roberts (USF) def. Carlos Bautista (TU), 6-4, 6-3
6. Dylan McCloskey (TU) vs. Vadym Kalyuzhnyy (USF) 6-3, 4-6, 5-6, unf.

(Order of Finish: 5,4,2*)


Atlantic Sun (Jacksonville, FL) – The match between #1 Florida Gulf Coast and #2 North Florida was halted early in singles due to rain and will resume at 9:30am eastern this morning. UNF took the doubles point to take the 1-0 – follow the live scoring of this one starting at 9:30.

Colonial (Williamsburg, VA): In a tournament that saw both the #1 (UNCW) and #2 (Elon) seeds get knocked out in the semifinals it was the host William & Mary Tribe that would win earn its first NCAA berth since 2005 with a 4-1 win Charleston in the finals.  

      


William & Mary recap
Charleston recap

#3 William & Mary 4, #4 College of Charleston 1.
April 19, 2015 – McCormack-Nagelsen Indoor Tennis Center 

Singles
No. 1 Christian Cargill (W&M) vs. Brice Allanic (CofC) DNF, 5-7, 3-5
No. 2 Will Juggins (W&M) def. Rodrigo Encinas (CofC) 6-4, 6-4
No. 3 Addison Appleby (W&M) vs. Charlie Ghriskey (CofC) DNF, 7-5, 4-3
No. 4 Damon Niquet (W&M) def. Vasily Kichigan (CofC) 6-4, 6-0
No. 5 Zack Lewis (CofC) def. Lars de Boer (W&M) 7-5, 6-3
No. 6 Alec Miller (W&M) def. Garrett Gordon (CofC) 6-4, 6-3
Finishing Order: 4, 6
Doubles
No. 1 Chaffee/Juggins (W&M) def. Allanic/Faiman (CofC) 8-5
No. 2 Appleby/de Boer (W&M) vs. Ghriskey/Lewis (CofC) DNF, 7-6
No. 3 Cargill/Niquet (W&M) def. Record/Encinas (CofC) 8-5
Finishing Order: 1, 3*

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