The USTA announced on Tuesday that it will be debuting a new set of college tennis rankings beginning on February 8th. A nine member panel (including myself) will vote on the D1 Men’s and Women’s Top 25 each week with the poll released on usta.com each Wednesday – the USTA’s full release is available here. The USTA also recently announced that it was expanding its College MatchDay series to a few sites outside of National Campus in Orlando. The full schedule is available here but the highest profile matches will be Stanford/Oklahoma State (W) in Orlando on February 17th, Ohio State/Florida (W) in Orlando on March 14th, and Virginia/Wake Forest (M) in Winston-Salem on March 31st. All MatchDay matches will be shown on ESPN3.
The Florida Gulf Coast women’s team opened up its season with a 5-2 win over South Florida which was the first time in program history that the Eagles had defeated the Bulls. FGCU took the doubles point after winning a tiebreak at No. 1 and then they took four opening sets in singles with two of those coming in a tiebreak. Julia Ascua and Laura Falceto Font won in straight sets at No. 3 and No. 6 to put FGCU up 3-0 before USF got on the board with a straight set win from Juliana Cardoso at No. 5. Breana Stampfli would seal the deal for FGCU by winning two tiebreak sets over Nicole Dzenga at No. 2. The remaining matches were played out with USF’s Ana Roman winning at No. 1 and FGCU’s Julianna Curtis winning at No. 4.
.@Bre_Sta clinches it in #2 singles and #FGCU takes down USF for the 1st time in program history!! #WingsUp pic.twitter.com/Xfji7Ao7jH
— FGCU Women’s Tennis (@FGCU_WTEN) January 24, 2017
1. Ana Roman (USF) def. ORNBERG, Maja (FGCU) 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 10-8
2. STAMPFLI, Breana (FGCU) def. Nicole Dzenga (USF) 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (8-6)
4. CURTIS, Julianna (FGCU) def. Vera Bessonova (USF) 4-6, 6-4, 6-2
5. Juliana Cardoso (USF) def. KELLY, Sara (FGCU) 6-3, 6-4
6. FALCETO FONT, Laura (FGCU) def. Hailey Grillo (USF) 6-1, 6-1
1. ASCUA, Julia/CURTIS, Julianna (FGCU) def. Jessica Chaves/Juliana Cardoso (USF) 7-6 (7-2)
Match Notes:
South Florida 0-1
Florida Gulf Coast University 1-0
Order of finish: Doubles (3,1,2); Singles (6,3,5,2,1,4)
- #3 Ohio State blanked both Butler and Xavier with nine different Buckeyes seeing the court in singles.
- Tulane opened up its season with a doubleheader sweep over Alcorn State
Women’s Dual-Match Results
- #20 Kentucky won a doubleheader over Marshall 5-2 and Eastern Kentucky 7-0
- North Florida shutout Florida A&M 7-0
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The NAIA released it’s preseason coaches poll with defending national champion Georgia Gwinnett on top of both the men’s and women’s polls. Below are the top 10 in each;
Men’s Top 10
| Rank | Last Season | School | Record | Final Points |
| 1 | 1 | Georgia Gwinnett (13) | 26-0 | 343 |
| 2 | 2 | Xavier (La) | 17-8 | 332 |
| 3 | 3 | Lindsey Wilson (Ky) | 17-4 | 321 |
| 4 | 7 | Keiser (Fla) | 20-4 | 305 |
| 5 | 5 | Northwestern Ohio | 16-4 | 304 |
| 6 | 8 | Coastal Georgia | 13-4 | 287 |
| 7 | 9 | William Carey (Miss) | 13-8 | 275 |
| 8 | 13 | Westmont (Calif) | 10-9 | 261 |
| 9 | 12 | Cardinal Stritch (Wis) | 16-7 | 242 |
| 10 | NR | San Diego Christian | 0-0 | 234 |
Women’s Top 10
| Rank | Last Season | School | Record | Final Points |
| 1 | 1 | Georgia Gwinnett (13) | 18-2 | 343 |
| 2 | 2 | Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) | 21-5 | 332 |
| 3 | 4 | SCAD Savannah (Ga.) | 17-1 | 321 |
| 4 | 5 | Brenau (Ga.) | 17-7 | 310 |
| 5 | 6 | Cardinal Stritch (Wis.) | 15-2 | 297 |
| 6 | 7 | William Woods (Mo.) | 17-2 | 289 |
| 7 | 8 | Indiana Wesleyan | 13-0 | 276 |
| 8 | 10 | Middle Georgia State | 15-8 | 263 |
| 9 | 11 | Davenport (Mich.) | 25-6 | 244 |
| 10 | 13 | Northwestern Ohio | 14-10 | 230 |
Maybe the Stanford women wont be chronically under ranked with you now Bobby!
They are always under-valued in the ITA computer rankings because they skip the KO Weekend and National Indoors and don't get the matches against quality (Top 40) opponents. If you look at their schedule this year they only have 20 matches scheduled and 10 of those are conference opponents. Of those 10 conference matches only Cal, USC, UCLA, and Arizona State will likely move the needle. They've got some strong non-conference matches lined up with Oklahoma State, Florida, Pepperdine, Vanderbilt, & Texas but unless they win all those plus all those needle movers in the Pac-12 they're not going to have as good a resume as the teams in the ACC and SEC which have half the conference in the top 25. Plus the Pac-12 doesn't have a conference tournament so they don't get a chance to beat some of the schools twice. If they go 16-4 they'll probably be ranked in the 7 to 12 range in the ITA computers – just the way it is.
I had them at No. 2 in my preseason poll only behind Florida.
Bobby, How do you see Penn State doing this year? I was impressed when I saw them beat Columbia in the NCAA tournament last year.
Got to replace some talent (Stak/Barry/Hanz) but Jeff and Paul have done a nice job stocking the shelves. If the newcomers are able to contribute as well as expected I think they'll be an NCAA Tournament team. I have them slotted as #5 in the Big Ten but if they can beat Michigan on 3/24 then maybe they can move into the top 4 of the conference.