by Bobby Knight | Oct 12, 2016 | Blog
The draws are out for the second Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu with this year’s format differing a good bit from last year. Last year the singles field was limited to 16 players with the field selected based on preseason ITA rankings; this year the field has been expanded to 32 players with the goal to have one player per conference. The other change relates to doubles – last year there was a men’s and women’s doubles draw but this year those have been scrapped in favor of a mixed doubles draw. The seeding is completely based on Universal Tennis Rating using a UTR from a few days ago. Texas freshman Yuya Ito is the top seed in the...
by Bobby Knight | Aug 29, 2016 | Blog
The field for this year’s Oracle/ITA Masters was announced today with 28 of 31 conferences sending a representative for the October 13-16 event in Malibu, California. The full selection criteria is here but in essence the top returning player from each conference was given the opportunity to participate with some accepting and others opting out. There was originally only supposed to be one wild card in each draw but there ended up being four due to the A10, Sun Belt, and SWAC not having a men’s representative while the Atlantic Sun, Horizon, and Mountain West didn’t have one on the women’s side.Several of the higher ranked Big Ten guys...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 21, 2015 | Blog
TCU’s Cameron Norrie claimed the inaugural Oracle ITA Masters with a 6-3, 7-6(2) win over Duke’s Nicolas Alvarez in the finals. Norrie came out ready to play and jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Alvarez got a break back but Norrie still took the set 6-3. Norrie would lead 5-3 in the 2nd set and have a match point on the Alvarez serve but Alvarez won the 40-all deciding point to make it 5-4. Alvarez would then break from 30-40 to even it at 5-5 and then he’d hold at love to go up 6-5. Norrie would then hold from 40-15 to send the second set to a tiebreak and the tiebreak would be all Norrie as he’d go up 4-0 and...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 20, 2015 | Blog
Duke’s Nicolas Alvarez and TCU’s Cameron Norrie, both sophomores, will play for Oracle ITA Masters Championship on Sunday after each managed to win not once but twice on a toasty Saturday afternoon in Malibu. Alvarez started the day off by cruising past TCU’s Guillermo Nunez 6-3, 6-2 before getting all he wanted and more from Texas Tech’s Felipe Soares in the semifinals. Soares took the opening set 6-3 but Alvarez squeezed out the 2nd set in a tiebreak 7-6(7). The 3rd set was all Alvarez as he handed Soares a 3rd set bagel to close out the 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-0 win.Norrie’s path to the finals was fairly similar to Alvarez’s...
by Bobby Knight | Sep 19, 2015 | Blog
It wasn’t a good day to be seeded player in the men’s draw of the Oracle ITA Masters with each of the 4 seeds getting taken out in the 1st round. Georgia’s Wayne Montgomery and Oklahoma’s Axel Alvarez, the #1 seed, squared off for the 3rd time in the last 12 months with each having won once. Montgomery won 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 a year ago at the Southern Intercollegiates in Athens while Alvarez won 6-1, 6-1 at the NCAA Team Quarterfinals last May in Waco. Alvarez jumped out to the early break lead but Montgomery turned it around quickly and got off the court with the 6-4, 6-2 win.Texas Tech’s Felipe Soares upset Virginia’s...
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