It was a day of close matches as we saw several lower seeds pull off upsets. In the ACC, #75 Clemson beat #32 Louisville 4-3 and #55 Georgia Tech hammered #35 Notre Dame 4-0. In the Mountain West unranked Nevada sent #67 Utah State packing win a 4-2 win and Boise State did the same to #69 Fresno State by knocking them off 4-0. In the Big Ten, Michigan beat #48 Penn State 4-2 and Nebraska came from behind to beat Michigan State 4-3. In the Pac 12, #50 Oregon looked like it was going to upset #25 Cal but the Bears rallied to win 4-3. Read about each match below.
Clemson lost the regular season meeting against Louisville at home by a 5-2 score though none of the singles matches were repeats this time around. Louisville won the doubles point last time with Clemson taking it this time. Clemson got wins from Alejandro Augusto, Luke Johnson, and Hampton Drake with the freshman from Hilton Head providing the clincher at #6 singles by taking the 3rd set 6-0. Below are some interviews from Clemson’s youtube:
The box score that Clemson posted actually showed Louisville winning 4-3 with Drake losing the last set 6-0 instead of winning – sounds like they were in disbelief too!
“Clemson got off to a great start with winning doubles and leading all six of the singles courts,” said UofL head coach Rex Ecarma. “It looked like we were too deep into a hole being down 0-2, but that is when we made a gutsy surge. Albert, Sebastian, and Van all regained control of extremely close matches to put us into the lead. But they played a little better than us and finished well in the two remaining courts. Those played with poise and avenged our 5-2 win against them at Clemson.”
Order of finish: Doubles (1,3); Singles (4,3,5,1,2,6)
Georgia Tech avenged a 6-1 regular season loss at Notre Dame even though 5 of the 6 singles matches were repeats. Notre Dame won the doubles point in the first match but Georgia Tech got the point this time around with wins at 1 and 2. The biggest turnaround was at #5 as GT’s Cole Fiegel smacked Billy Pecor 6-1, 6-0 after Pecor won the first meeting 7-5, 6-1. Michael Kay clinched the win at #4 singles with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Alex Lawson though if Kay didn’t clinch Benito was right there at #2 and Rakitt was up a set and a break at #3.
Note: GT recap showed Eric Schnurrenberger playing #6 for ND though ND’s recap showed Kenneth Sabacinski. The ACC’s live scoring showed Sabacinski too however it also showed Nicolas Alvarez playing at #1 for Duke (he sat out) and Esben Hess-Olesen playing at #5 for UNC (sat out too).
Georgia Tech recap
Here’s sound from @jkennyt following #GT_MTEN victory over Notre Dame at #ACCMTEN http://t.co/tAHpnVYZZX
GT Men’s Tennis (@GT_MTEN) April 23, 2015
Notre Dame recap
Order of finish: Doubles (2,3,1); Singles (5,6,4)
The match of the day at the ACC Tournament was this one between Florida State and NC State. NC State looked good early on in doubles after jumping out to leads on all 3 courts – 4-2 on 1, 7-4 on 2, and 5-3 on 3. NC State’s #2 team won 8-5 and its #3 team served for the match up 7-6 but Florida State wouldn’t go away. FSU’s #3 team of the Whitehurst brothers broke back to force the tiebreak then won it 7-3 in the TB. FSU’s #1 team won the final 2 points of the tiebreak to win that court 7-5.
NC State came out strong in singles and took the opening set on 5 of 6 courts however they’d be unable to finish them out because Florida State would win 3rd set tiebreaks at 3, 4, and 5 with Cristian Mendez clinching the come from behind win at #3 – Mendez was down a break at 4-3 in the 3rd before breaking back. Terrell Whitehurst came back from 5-2 down in his 3rd set tiebreak at #5 to win 7-5. Florida’s State #1 Benjamin Lock also had a match point at the time of the clinch.
Both teams played without singles starters – FSU’s #3 Marco Nunez and NCST’s #2 Simon Norenius both didn’t play. Norenius retired in his match against Notre Dame last weekend with an injury while Nunez played twice last weekend but only won 3 games. I’m not sure if Nunez was injured and that’s why he played poorly last week or if he was held out for different reasons.
FSU recap
“It’s one of those matches where nothing came easy for either team, head coach Dwayne Hultquist said. “We used tiebreak wins on five courts today. Because we played them a few weeks ago, I felt we were at a disadvantage having to come back up to their turf and play again and deal with the revenge factor, but we toughed it out and got the win.
NC State recap
So close, yet so far away – that’s how Oregon has to feel after todays match. The Ducks jumped on Cal early by taking the doubles point with wins at 2 and 3 and then took 4 opening sets in singles. Cormac Clissold was the only Duck to finish in straight sets with a 6-3, 6-2 win at #5, which put Oregon up 2-0, but then Billy Griffith put Cal on the board with a 6-2, 6-2 win at #6. The 4 other singles matches would each go the distance with the person losing the 1st set winning in the end. There were so many twists and turns in each match along the way that it got tough to keep track of.
Cal’s Andre Goransson would even the match at 2-2 with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 win at #1 singles over Daan Maasland. Goransson sprinted out to a 5-2 lead in the 3rd set and served for the match but Maasland would break, hold, and break again to even the match up at 5-5. Goransson would then break back and serve it out to finally secure the win.
Cal’s Oskar Wikberg would put Cal ahead 3-2 when he completed his comeback at #4 singles with a 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 win over Jayson Amos. It looked like Amos was going to finish off Wikberg in straight sets when he led 6-3, 5-3 but Wikberg held for 4-5, broke Amos serving for the match to even it at 5, then held serve for 6-5. If I remember correctly Amos had at least 1 match point on the 5-4 serve game. Amos would then come back from 0-40 down to hold and send it to a tiebreak but Wikberg would take the final 2 points of the TB to take it 7-5 and send the match to a 3rd set. Wikberg broke Amos to go up 2-1 in the 3rd but Amos would break right back and then hold to go up 3-2. After 3 straight holds, Wikberg would break Amos to go up 5-4 and then he’d serve it out to put that 3rd point on the board.
Oregon’s Daniel Sardu would tie it up at 3-3 with a come from behind 2-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(5) win over Filip Bergevi at #2 singles. It looked like Bergevi would close this one out in straight sets when he led 6-2, 5-4 but Sardu fought off a slew of match points to hold for 5-5 and would ultimately push the 2nd set to a tiebreak. Bergevi led 6-5 in the tiebreak but Sardu would take the final 3 points to take it 8-6. Sardu jumped out a 5-2 lead in the 3rd before Bergevi charged back to tie it at 5-5. Each would hold 1 more time to send it a tiebreak then Sardu got the early mini-break and held on to take it 7-5.
The final remaining court left was at #3 singles as Cal’s Greg Bayane opened up a 4-0 lead in the 3rd over Oregon’s Simon Stevens. Before we proceed forward lets go back to the 2nd set where it looked like Stevens was going to close out Bayane in straights after leading 6-4, 5-3. Bayane held for 4-5 then would break Stevens in a lengthy service game that had at least 5 deuces with Stevens having at least 2 match points (may have been 3). Bayane held for 6-5 then Stevens held to send it a tiebreak but the TB was all Bayane as he cruised 7-2. Jumping back to where we started, after Bayane held for 4-0 Stevens would finally snap out of his slump and hold for 1-4. Bayane quickly held for 5-1 and then had 2 match points on the Stevens’ serve before Stevens held for 2-5. Bayane went up 40-15 on his 5-2 service game but Stevens got it back to deuce. Bayane got the next point to give himself another match point but then Stevens would take the next 3 points to break for 3-5. Stevens would then go down 30-40 on his service game but would fight back to hold for 4-5. It just seemed like this one was heading for a dramatic 3rd set tiebreak but Bayane finally righted the ship and would hold from 40-15 to propel Cal into Friday’s semifinals against rival Stanford.
Order of Finish: 6, 5, 1, 4, 2, 3
Another candidate for match of the day came in the Big Ten as Nebraska came back from 3-1 down to defeat Michigan State 4-3. Nebraska won the doubles point going away but Michigan State picked up straight set wins from Brett Forman, Jasper Koenen, and Michael Dube at 2, 5, and 6 to take the 3-1 lead. Michigan State’s Harry Jadun was also up a set on #3 but Nebraska’s Marc Hermann rallied back and won 2-6, 6-1, 6-3. Nebraska also picked up a win at #4 as Andrew Dzulynsky beat Mac Roy 7-6, 6-4. With the match tied at 3-3 it all came down to #1 between Nebraska’s Dusty Boyer and Michigan State’s Gijs Linders. Boyer took the first set 7-6 but Linders broke Boyer to go up 6-5 in the second then served it out to even the match at a set a piece. Linders opened up a double break lead in the 3rd and was serving up 3-0 before Boyer regained his footing and started the comeback. Boyer would go ahead 6-5 then break Linders to take it 7-5 in the 3rd and send Nebraska onto the quarterfinals.
Nebraska recap
Michigan State recap
[10] Nebraska 4, [7] Michigan State 3
Michigan jumped out to the early 1-0 lead by taking the doubles point but Penn State went ahead 2-1 with wins from Leo Stakhovsky and Roman Trkulja at 1 and 5. Michigan’s Alex Knight evened the match at 2 with an easy win at 3 and then Kevin Wong would come back from a set down to win 12 of the final 13 games to put the Wolverines ahead 3-2. While Penn State’s Matt Barry fought hard to force a 3rd set at #3, Michigan’s Runhao Hua would pull away down the stretch at #2 and would end up clinching the match by winning 6-1 in the 3rd.
Michigan recap
Penn State recap
“A very difficult loss but Michigan just outplayed us today,” said Tobin. “We have to give them credit when it’s due. We had opportunities across the board, but we were not able to hang on to our leads.”
Utah State recap
No. 7 Nevada will play the winner of No. 3 SDSU/No. 6 UNLV on Sat., April 25
Boise State has picked the right time to start playing better and as a result they’ve now won 3 straight after avenging a loss 4-3 from last Saturday by defeating #69 Fresno State 4-0. Boise State took the doubles point by picking up wins at 1 and 3 then the Broncos got singles wins from Garrett Patton, Thomas Tenreiro, and Abe Hewko at 1, 2, and 6.
Boise State recap
Fresno State recap
[5] Boise State (13-15) 4, #69 [4] Fresno State (16-10)
Latest Comments