Sunday Recap – Illini Downs The Aggies, Tulsa Upsets Ohio State, LSU Upends Vandy, Wake Impresses

The beat goes on for #4 Illinois as the Illini rolled into College Station today and rolled out several hours later with a 4-2 win over #9 Texas A&M.  Illinois was without its #1 Farris Gosea for the 2nd day in a row but just as they did against Texas the rest of the guys rallied and got it done.

The day didn’t start off too well for Illinois as Texas A&M rolled at 1 and 2 doubles winning both courts by a 6-2 score.   Interesting comment below from Dancer about him feeling they played better doubles today than yesterday despite winning yesterday and losing today.

Both teams slightly altered their singles lineups by switching 5 and 6 but since both teams made the same moves the match-ups themselves were the same but just at a spot higher or lower than originally thought.

Texas A&M’s AJ Catanzariti was first off the court with a quick 6-2, 6-1 win at #5 singles over yesterday’s hero Blake Bazarnik but Illinois wouldn’t stay scoreless for long because Toshiki Matsuya would ring up a 6-3, 6-4 win at #6 singles over Jordi Arconada.  As a side note, the Texas A&M live scoring showed Brian Page playing at #6 the entire match and it wasn’t until the Illinois recap came out that it was revealed that it was really Matsuya.  Those 2 guys don’t exactly look like each other so you would have thought somebody would have caught that sooner.

After taking the opening set 6-3, Illinois #1 Jared Hiltzik would fall behind 3-1 in the 2nd but would then come back and take the final 5 games of the set to register a 6-3, 6-3 win over Jeremy Efferding which would tie the overall match at 2.

The 3 remaining matches would all end up going 3 sets as Tim Kopinski rallied to get a split on 2 while both Harrison Adams and Arthur Rinderknech did the same at 3 and 4.

Aron Hiltizk would overcome the loss of the 2nd set by rebounding in the 3rd for a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over Harrison Adams which would put Illinois just a point away from the win.

It looked like Shane Vinsant was going to knot it at 3 after taking a 5-2 lead on 2 however Kopinski would win the next 3 to even it at 5-5.

While Tim Kopinski was fighting to stay alive at 2 his teammate Aleks Vukic was putting down the hammer at #4 and would end up closing out Arthur Rinderknech 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. Vukic got off to a slow start in this one falling behind 4-1 in the 1st set before winning 6 of the next 7 games to take the set.  After hitting a lull in the 2nd set the freshman from Sydney, Australia rebounded in the 3rd by going up an early break and held on the rest of the way.

All but one of the singles matches went the way I thought with that one exception being at #1 where Jared Hiltzik got it done in straight sets over Jeremy Efferding.

It was also mentioned in Zoo Tennis that Farris Gosea has been suspended indefinitely so who knows if he’ll back or not.

FYI, the number beside the player’s school is the player’s Universal Tennis Rating as of March 14th.  For more details about UTR check out their website. 

Illinois recap

Texas A&M recap

Who Wins on Sunday in College Station

______________________________________________________

For the 2nd time this year Tulsa pulled off an upset over a top 10 team with #10 Ohio State being the victims this time around.  Ohio State won the doubles point with wins at 1 and 2 but then they pulled their #3 singles player Herkko Pollanen (reasons unknown) which forced everyone else to move up a spot.

Unlike in year’s past where Ohio State has had 8 to 9 quality starters this year’s squad is a little lean with there being a rather large drop-off from #6 to #7 and that drop-off became evident pretty quickly as Tulsa’s Dylan McCloskey quickly closed out Matt Mendez at #6 singles 6-1, 6-3.  Ohio State’s Hunter Callahan would put Ohio State back ahead 2-1 with a 6-4, 6-2 win at #3 singles over Matthew Kirby but unbelievably that would be Ohio State’s last point.

Tulsa’s Mitchell Pritchard would tie it at 2 with a 7-6, 6-1 win at #4 over Ralf Steinbach and then it looked like Tulsa’s Carlos Bautista would make it 3-2 as he served for the match at #5 singles up 5-4 in the 3rd against Kevin Metka.  Bautista would go up 15-0 then after Metka passed him at the net to make it 15 all, Bautista threw in a double fault, shanked a forehand, and then doubled again to give, and I mean give, the break to Metka to tie it at 5.

It then appeared that Ohio State’s Mikael Torpegaard was going to put Ohio State back on top as he went up 5-3 in the 3rd against Alejandro Espejo at #2 singles.  After an Espejo hold Torpegaard served for the match and would get it to the deciding point which was also match point.  Torpegaard stayed in control of the point and after Espejo’s shot hit the net cord and kicked up about 5 feet in the air it looked like Torpegaard was simply going to crush it into the open court but then he did the unthinkable and buried it into the net.  It was one of those moments where he had a ton of options and he probably just simply overthought it and it cost him.

While both Torpegaard and Bautista tried to regroup Tulsa’s Or Ram-Harel was putting the finishing touches on his match at #1 singles against a cramping Chris Diaz.  The turning point in the match came when Ram-Harel was serving at 3-1, 30-40.  The 2 guys had what was easily a 25-30 shot rally and around shot 25 Ram-Harel starting putting the pressure on and after Diaz went back and forth across the court a few times he stumbled and then was basically on his back when the final shot was hit right around where his waste would have been.  That point in essence was all she wrote as Diaz would win maybe 1 point the rest of the way.

With Tulsa now up 3-2 they just needed 1 of the final 2 courts and they would end up getting both as Alejandro Espejo provided the clincher at #2 singles by winning the final 4 games to take it 7-6, 3-6, 7-5.  The match ended when Torpegaard double-faulted while serving at 30-40.

The match at #5 was in a tiebreak with Bautista leading 6-3 when Tulsa clinched and I thought they would stop it but then ended up playing it out and Bautista took the tiebreak 7-4 to make the final 5-2. The Ohio State recap actually shows the match wasn’t played out with a final of 4-2 but I was following the stream and they did finish it out.

It was a tough loss for Ohio State which means when the Buckeyes go to Texas on Tuesday they will be ranked outside of the Top 10 for the 1st time in 294 matches.

If the video clip from Tulsa coach Vince Westbrook doesn’t come up click on the Tulsa recap link – in it he talks about what he thinks was the difference in the match

Tulsa recap

Ohio State recap