There were two bigger stories on Saturday – the rain that wiped out several matches and Lamar upsetting No. 28 Rice 4-1. The bad weather out in California washed out the Oregon/Cal and San Diego/Santa Clara matches while UNC Wilmington and VCU were rained out in Richmond. Both of the matches in California are set to be played on Sunday while UNC Wilmington and VCU won’t make their match up.
Earlier this season Lamar upset then No. 47 Iowa 4-2 but today’s win over Rice took it to a new level. Lamar took the doubles point by winning the deciding match at No. 2 in a tiebreak and then the Cardinals took four opening sets in singles. Lamar junior Nikita Lis rolled over Tommy Bennett 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 but Rice senior Adam Gustafsson countered with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Sebastian Santibanez at No. 3.
Lamar junior Michael Feucht knocked off Jamie Malik 6-4, 7-5 at No. 1 and sophomore Benny Schwiezer clinched the match with a 7-5, 6-3 UTR upset over Jake Hansen at No. 4. The two remaining matches were abandoned with Rice leading earlier in the third set at No. 5 and Lamar up a set at No. 6.
#68 Lamar 4, #28 Rice 1
4/9/2016 at Beamont, Texas (Thompson Family Tennis Center)
Singles competition
1. Michael Feucht (LU 13.23) def. Jamie Malik (RICE 13.05) 6-4, 7-5
“We respect Rice a great deal,” said LU head coach Scott Shankles. “That’s a great program who is very well coached. They’ve had the upper hand in this series for a long time, but we’ve continued to get closer the last few years. We felt like if we continued to work at our game we could eventually beat this guys. We felt confident coming in and I think it showed on the court.”
“Doubles is so important in the collegiate format,” said Shankles. “If you can get on the board early, you’re giving the other teams a strong chance to get the point. Even though we lost the first match of the day, we took the victory at No. 3 doubles just a couple minutes later and our No. 2 doubles team just kept battling and hanging in there. In the end, we came up with some big shots which enabled us to win the match at get the point.”
“This was a big win for our program, but for us everything comes down to conference,” said Shankles. “We still have two matches remaining and next is UIW tomorrow. They have a very young, talented team to mix in with some veteran guys and it is going to be tough. We’ve seen these guys play so we know how tough of a match it will be, and we need to be ready to play.”
Sixth-ranked Wake Forest set a new program record for wins in a single season by picking up its 25th win on Saturday with a 6-1 win over No. 60 Duke.
Wake rolled through the doubles point with Skander Mansouri/Christian Seraphim winning 6-1 at No. 1 while Romain Bogaerts/Dennis Uspensky won 6-2 at No. 3.
Wake took five of six opening sets in singles and Petros Chrysochos, Romain Bogaerts, and Christian Seraphim would win in straight sets with Bogaerts clinching at No. 4. Duke got a straight set win from Nicolas Alvarez at No. 1 while Wake picked up three set wins from Jon Ho and Dennis Uspensky at No. 3 and No. 6.
Note: this was the final regular season home match for Wake’s five seniors – Romain Bogaerts, Jon Ho, Anthony Delcore, Sam Bloom and Brendan Henry.
Side Note: I predicted Wake would go 25-5 in the regular season when I did my preseason preview so it looks like I was almost on the money. Two thumbs up to me!
#6 Wake Forest 6, #60 Duke 1
Apr 09, 2016 at Winston-Salem, N.C. (Wake Forest Tennis Complex)
NAIA No. 1 Georgia Gwinnett knocked off D2 No. 1 Hawaii Pacific 5-3 in a neutral site match that was played in Pensacola, Florida.
HPU’s top ranked doubles team of Thibaud Berland and Alexander Meyer defeated GGC’s top ranked doubles team of Kevin Konfederak and Jordan Cox 8-4 at No. 1. GGC took the other two doubles matches 8-4 to take the early 2-1 lead. Note: all Divisions outside of D1 play regular ad-scoring, with doubles to eight, and also count each doubles match as a result.
HPU’s Thibaud Berland, who is the top ranked player in D2, defeated GGC’s Jordan Cox 6-4, 6-4 at No. 1 singles. For those not familiar with Berland he currently has the second highest Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) of all French college players and he also nearly beat last year’s D1 NCAA runner-up, Noah Rubin, before falling 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 at the $50K Maui Challenger back in January.
HPU’s Jakub Hadrava put the Sharks ahead 3-2 with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Connor Clements at No 6. GGC’s Kevin Konfederak, who is the top ranked player in the NAIA, tied the match at 3-3 with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Alexander Meyer at No. 2. Konfederak’s name might be familiar to some because he was named one of my Fall Phenoms after beating several high end D1 guys back in the fall.
GGC’s Gilad Berman made it 4-3 with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 win over Jaume Martinez-Vich at No. 4 and Lachlan McPhee would clinch the win for the Grizzles with a 6-4, 7-6(9) win over Torben Otto at No. 5.
In case you were wondering, the Jordan Cox that plays for Georgia Gwinnett is the same Jordan Cox who was the singles runner-up at the 2009 Wimbledon juniors. There is also a good article here about his choice to quit the pro tour and come back to get a college degree.
#1 Georgia Gwinnett 5, #1 Hawaii Pacific 3 Apr 09, 2016 at Pensacola, FL (Ralph “Skeeter” Carson Tennis Complex)
Order of finish: Doubles (1,2,3); Singles (1,6,2,4,5)
*Hatem’s UTR only has a 40% reliability due to not enough record results. __________________________________________________________________
Old Dominion won for the 14th time in the last 15 matches with a 4-0 win over No. 70 William & Mary. ODU took the doubles point and picked up straight set win from Adam Moundir, Aziz Kijametovic, and Javier Jover Maestre at 1, 2, and 4.
The schools listed scores for all the doubles matches but they didn’t list them for No. 3, 5, and 6 singles so I don’t have a clue who was up in those matches. I still don’t get why some schools don’t list scores of unfinished matches – the matches were played and there was a score of some kind so report it – they help tell the story.
#48 Old Dominion 4, #70 William & Mary 0
Apr 09, 2016 in Norfolk, Va. (Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center)
Singles competition
1. Adam Moundir (ODU) def. Christian Cargill (W&M); 6-1, 6-0
2. Aziz Kijametovic (ODU) def. Addison Appleby (W&M); 6-4, 6-0
3. Michael Weindl (ODU) vs. Alec Miller (W&M) – No score
4. Javier Jover Maestre (ODU) def. Lars de Boer (W&M); 6-2, 6-1
5. Zvonimir Podvinski (ODU) vs. Aidan Talcott (W&M) – No score
6. Jacob Nicolussi (ODU) vs. Damon Niquet (W&M) – No score
Drake extended its Missouri Valley Conference winning streak to 23 matches with a 4-1 win over Wichita State. Drake took the doubles point with wins at No. 2 and No. 3 and then the Bulldogs took five opening sets in singles.
Drake senior Ben Lott was the first off the court with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Miroslav Herzan at No. 1. Wichita State freshman Eddie Stoica put the Shockers on the board with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Bayo Phillips at No. 4 but it was all Drake everywhere else.
Drake freshman Tom Hands racked up a 6-2, 7-5 win over Austin Williams at No. 6 and freshman Vinny Gillespie clinch the match with a 7-6, 6-4 win over Jocelyn Devilliers at No. 2.
Note: Wichita State played without its No. 1 singles player Tin Ostojic who missed his second straight match with an injury.
Portland and Loyola Marymount waited around for a while for the rain to subside and once it did they started the match by playing singles first. Portland got quick straight set wins from Felix Fan and Carlos Donat No. 5 and No. 6 but all the other courts would go the distance.
Portland’s Alex Wallace extended the Pilots lead to 3-0 with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 win over Lukas Moenter at No. 4. LMU’s Errol Smith would win 6-0 in the third over Mathieu Garcia at No. 2 but Portland’s Pierre Garcia would clinch the victory with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 win over Joat Farat at No. 3
Portland 4, #58 LMU 1
Apr 09, 2016 at Los Angeles, Calif. (LMU Tennis Center)
“I am really proud of this group of guys,” Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. “We waited around a good part of the day thinking that we were not going to play because of the rain. When we finally did get going, it spit here and there throughout the match, but we just kept going.”
“Felix and Carlos continue to be such stable spots for us in the line-up, which is really cool to say of two freshmen,” Gross noted.
“Alex Wallace and Pierre Garcia each came up big today,” Gross said. “Both won gritty three setters and it was especially satisfying to see Pierre get the clinching point for us today. He has been right there a couple of times to put us over the top against a couple of ranked opponents and came up just a hair short. Today he just refused to be denied. Just really solid tennis in sets two and three and I couldn’t be happier for him.
“Although he didn’t get to finish, Mike Pervolarakis came back from a set down to take the lead in the third set and played great. This was an excellent road victory for our team.”
Stanford and Washington played some night tennis out on the West Coast with rain pushing the starting time back from 1pm to 7pm and it also caused a change in venue from outdoors at Stanford to indoors in Burlingame.
Stanford took the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 2 and then the Cardinal claimed four opening sets in singles. Tom Fawcett, Michael Genender, and Maciek Romanowicz on in straight sets at 1, 3, and 6 while Washington picked up its lone point from Gal Hakak at No. 4.
#42 Stanford 4, #30 Washington 1
Apr 09, 2016 at Burlingame, Calif (Broadway Tennis Center)
Doubles competition
1) Fawcett/Romanowicz (STAN) d. Foley/Waranabe (UW) 6-1
2) Paige/Wilczynski (STAN) d. Lam/Sommer (UW) 6-2
3) Yale Goldberg/Kumar (STAN) vs. Douglas/Hakak (UW) abandoned
Singles competition
1) No. 8 Tom Fawcett (STAN) d. No. 78 Mitch Stewart (UW) 6-4, 6-1
2) Enzo Sommer (UW) vs. No. 69 David Wilczynski (STAN) 6-3, 1-6, 3-1 unfinished
3) Michael Genender (STAN) d. Jake Douglas (UW) 6-4, 6-1
4) Gal Hakak (UW) d. No. 113 Nolan Paige (STAN) 6-1, 7-5
5) Sameer Kumar (STAN) vs. Sebastian Hawken (UW) 6-4, 4-5 unfinished
6) Maciek Romanowicz (STAN) d. Piers Foley (UW) 6-2, 6-2
Match Notes
Washington 16-7 (3-3 Pac-12) National ranking #30
Stanford 12-8 (4-2 Pac-12); National ranking #42
Order of Finish: Doubles (1,2); Singles (4, 6, 3, 1*)
“It was a long day today being moved up to Burlingame for the match and playing at the club there, said head coach Matt Anger. “But it was a good match and it was well played, I’m just disappointed that we’re still not out there playing right now.
Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell were the winners in the Ivy League on Saturday. I haven’t seen a box score on Cornell/Brown but I know that Cornell won 4-1. Columbia rolled over Yale 5-2 while Dartmouth pulled out a 4-2 win over Princeton. The closest off all the matches ended up with the most lopsided score. Harvard beat Penn 6-1 though four of the six singles matches went the distance.
#38 Dartmouth 4, #37 Princeton 2
Apr 09, 2016 at Hanover, NH (Boss Tennis Center)
Doubles Competition
1. #63 Wall/Tannenbaum (Dartmouth) vs. Day/Gamble (Princeton), 4-2, DNF
“We played great doubles today,” head coach Chris Drake said. “All three teams and all six players were ready to go from the start and produced some very good tennis. Princeton came at us with some extremely good, aggressive tennis at the beginning of singles and turned the momentum in their favor for a while. Winning the first set tiebreakers on No. 3 and No. 5 was huge for us at that point in the match. This was a great team effort. The atmosphere in Boss/Gordon was electric today. Thanks to the crowd of students and community members for cheering us on so enthusiastically.”
Coach Billy Pate on the match: “After a disappointing doubles point, I thought we rebounded well and put ourselves in a good position. We had a lot of momentum, but Dartmouth did a good job of getting two first-set tiebreakers at No. 3 and No. 5. We battled hard but came up short in a close match. We’re going to come back out tomorrow at Harvard with a sense of resolve and get after it. This team has done a great job this spring of rebounding after tough losses and we’ll expect the same thing tomorrow. We still control our own destiny in the league, but we are going to need to be at our best each time we step on the court.”
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