May 18th through the 21st saw the last few rounds of the Men's Championship heat up before some of these same stars take the court for the singles tournament which is happening this week and ends on Sunday the 28th for both men and women. As expected at this stage, schools like the University of Texas Austin, Texas Christian University (TCU), Ohio State University and Kentucky have made it through the first half of the tournament as the highest seeds in their region. How did they fare in the second?
Top Left Region:
Now each region has only two teams and so far the Longhorns and Gamecocks have shown why they deserve to be at the top of the list. May 18th saw an enticing quarterfinal matchup between the two at the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Campus in Lake Nona, Florida. Although it is labeled a neutral location, it can't be argued that the trip would be much shorter for Gamecock nation. Unfortunately, the theoretical great fan support from the South Carolina fans would play no factor in this one, as the Longhorns would win their 4th straight match 4-0.
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On the doubles courts, South Carolina got the first match win with the unranked pair of Casey Hoole (#102 in singles) and Raphael Lambling (#122 in singles) winning 6-2. Texas then grabbed the next two doubles matches, so unfortunately the first win became moot as Texas got the one point that was up for grabs. The #1 player in the country Elliot Spizzirri is half of the #3 pair in the country with unranked singles player Cleeve Harper and they got a 7-5 win over the best pair in the country in Toby Samuel and Connor Thomson. These are also the best singles players on South Carolina, as Toby Samuel is the #10 player in the country and Thomson #16. The #75 pairing in the country of Pierre Yves-Bailly and Siem Woldeab defeated Jake Beasley and James Story 6-4 who were ranked 48th.
On the singles side, the Longhorns continued their dominance. All three of the matches needed to finish went their way. #54 Siem Woldeab scored another win, this time against Raphael Lambling 6-4, 6-3. #116 James Story lost for a second time that day, as #61 Micah Braswell beat him 6-4, 6-2. Also, Spizzirri's doubles partner Cleeve Harper won in singles as well, as he defeated Casey Hoole 6-3, 6-4 to secure the quick shutout on the scoreboard. In fact, out of the six singles matches that were started, the Gamecocks had the lead in only one of them, and perhaps it would surprise you which one. Elliot Spizzirri was actually down to Toby Samuel, losing the first set in a 7-4 tiebreak. Texas was in control of virtually every match they played.
Top Right Region:
In my prediction for this quarter-final matchup between the #6 seed University of Georgia Bulldogs and the #3 seed Ohio State University (OSU) Buckeyes, I said that the #2 player in the country Ethan Quinn would fall short of rallying his troops to the upset. I was right about everything but the scoreline. Ethan Quinn had a great day on the courts in Orlando, but his team did slightly better than I expected. I said 4-2 while the Bulldogs snagged 3 points. In the 4-3 win for the Buckeyes on May 19th, they were actually outmatched in the doubles portion.
Quinn with teammate Trent Bryde compose the sixth best doubles team in the nation and secured a straightforward 6-3 win over #21 Justin Boulais and Robert Cash. The Dogs got the W in the unranked battle as well with Blake Croyder and Britton Johnson beating Cannon Kingsley and JJ Tracy 6-3 as well. In the unfinished match, the Buckeye team of #16 Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter were also down to unranked pair Teodor Giusca and Philip Henning 3-5. On the other hand, the singles were very competitive. It took all six matches to finish the scoreline, as the Bulldogs grabbed the one and only point from the doubles. Out of the four singles wins for the Buckeyes, ones that stuck out were #11 Cannon Kingsly beating #19 Philip Henning in straight sets (6-4, 7-5) and #34 James Trotter dispatched #106 Blake Croyder 6-2, 6-2 (first singles match to finish). Both of the Bulldog singles wins were significant as well, and they came from the doubles team of Quinn and Bryde. At first singles, #2 Ethan Quinn defeated #24 Justin Boulais 6-4, 6-2 while #113 Trent Bryde upset #22 JJ Tracy 6-4, 6-3. Quinn worked his magic, but one man can only do so much for victory in the team championships.
Bottom Right Region:
The other matchup from last Friday was between the #7 Michigan Wolverines and #2 Texas Christian University (TCU) Horned Frogs. The matchup was a tale of two halves but unfortunately the Wolverines did not score where they needed to. TCU looked very much like the number two team in the country with their 4-1 win. While singles was nothing short of spectacular, the Horned Frogs might need some training when it comes to teamwork. Michigan picked up their only point in this category, and TCU never had a lead.
Both matches that finished (and went to the score sheet) were unranked Wolverine teams and one of the losses for TCU was a huge upset as they put out the #22 pair in the nation; Sander Jong and Lui Maxted at third singles and were trounced 6-2. In the unfinished match, the second best pair in the country of Jake Fearnley and Luc Fomba didn't get to start their tiebreaker against #7 Andrew Fenty and Andrew Young. Now on the singles side, the Horned Frogs were freakishly good. Because they didn't pick up the doubles point, they needed to secure four singles wins, and they did just that with flying colors and beyond. They won all four of the first matches to finish. Most notably was #17 Luc Fomba beating #44 Patrick Maloney in straight sets 7-5, 6-3. Two of the remaining three were healthy upsets that were both sparked by tight first set tiebreak wins.
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At third singles, #71 Jack Pinnington defeated #20 Andrew Fenty 7-4 in the first set breaker before dominating the second set 6-1. Again, similar fashion ensued with #92 Sebastian Gorzny beating #63 Gavin Young 8-6 in the first set breaker and winning the second set convincingly with a 6-2 set line. Unfortunately the marquee singles match of the day went unfinished. It was entering the third set as TCU's #21 Jake Fearnley got the first set 6-3 against the #8 player in the country Ondrej Styler for the Wolverines who got the second set breaker 7-5.
Bottom Left Region:
The matchup between the defending champions and number 5 seed Virginia Cavaliers and 4 seed Kentucky Wildcats was the second faceoff last Thursday in Lake Nona. Let me start by stating that I was baffled that Kentucky even made it this far, even if they are the region's leader and number four team in the country. They narrowly edged Northwestern in the second round in a very competitive 4-3 win and then I predicted Stanford would beat them, but then again the Wildcats from Lexington escaped 4-3 for the second time in a row. I knew that they wouldn't escape three times in a row, especially due to the fact that the defending champs are a huge step up in competition from the last two unseeded challengers. For that reason, I predicted a convincing 4-1 win, but I was proven to be off by one for the losing team another time, as the Cavs prevailed 4-2.
When looking at the boxscore, I'm afraid 2 points might even look generous for the Cats. Starting with third doubles (first to finish), Kentucky won the battle of unranked teams as Liam Draxl and Jaden Weekes beat Alexander Kiefer and Mans Dahlberg 6-3. In second singles the Cavs brought the doubles scoreline level as unranked Chris Rodesch and J vd Schulenburg upset #67 JJ Mercer and Joshua Lapadat 7-5. First singles, which was the last to finish, would be the decider for the crucial doubles point, and it went down to the wire. Luckily for the Cats, it went in their favor as #28 Taha Baadi and Alafia Ayeni defeated #58 Inaki Montes and William Woodall in a tiebreak that went 11-9. This uber competitive breaker could have really shifted the look of this matchup.
Nevertheless, the Cavs were unstoppable in singles. Only five of six matches were needed for the scoreboard (one unfinished) and Kentucky only got one of those five. In a strange momentum match, and honestly the weirdest scoreline I have covered in this tournament, #18 Alafia Ayeni of Kentucky beat #26 Inaki Montes 7-6 (7-2), 1-6, 6-3 in a wild three sets. It is also very surprising that a three set match went to the score sheet, as the pattern in this tournament would be that it would have gone unfinished. In fact, it only went to the score sheet because the matchup between J vd Schulenburg of the Cavs and Joshua Lapadat of the Cats was at 5-6 in the third set and only went unfinished because the second and third sets in the Ayeni-Montes match were convincing and quick. Not to play the theoretical card, but if those sets were more competitive (which is plausible) and the deciding doubles breaker went the other way (also plausible) this could have easily been 4-0. Hence, why I said the boxscore is slightly deceiving. Lastly, the marquee singles match was notable as #9 Chris Rodesch beat #13 Liam Draxl in straight sets 6-4, 6-3. As the second singles match to finish, Rodesch set the tone for the rest of his teammates to follow suit.
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Semi-Finals:
Let us begin with the fascinating matchup between the best team in the country (Texas) and defending team champions (Virginia). The number seed and the number five seed faced off at the USTA National Campus on May 20th. Let me also start by saying that if I was covering this semi-final match before it occurred my prediction would have been 4-2 in favor of the LongHorns as the talent behind Spizzirri is enough to beat any team and player on any given day. As you have seen so far in this article, my NCAA tennis predictions have been skewed, but not flat out wrong. This time I was the latter. Rodesch and Co. were up to the challenge and pulled off what I believe to be the upset of the tournament with a blistering 4-1 win over the top seed. In what seemed to be an off day, Elliot Spizzirri's magic seemed to have worn off and couldn't even get on the scoresheet.
The Longhorns had strange results on every inch of the court last Saturday, as the Cavaliers quickly grabbed the doubles point through two unranked doubles pairs in similar dominant fashion. In third doubles (first to finish) Ryan Goetz and Alexander Kiefer beat Chih Chi Huang and Evin McDonald 6-1. Then in second doubles, Chris Rodesch and J vd Schulenburg upset #75 Siem Woldeab/Pierre-Yves Bailly with a dominant 6-1 scoreline as well. In the ranked matchup (which went unfinished) #58 Inaki Montes/William Woodall were tied at 3 all against #3 Elliot Spizzirri and Cleeve Harper.
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As mentioned before, Spizzirri couldn't find his way all day. In the marquee first singles match, #9 Rodesch grabbed the first set 7-2 in the breaker against Elliot. Then the best player in the nation came back in the second set 6-4, but his momentum halted as Rodesch was up 5-3 in the third before the match was deemed unfinished. The second singles match was deemed unfinished as well, as Cavalier and #26 Inaki Montes was up 3-0 on #28 Pierre-Yves Bailly before play stopped. Three things were surprising here. First, Texas got only one singles win. Second, the Cavs got their wins from the bottom of their lineup. Third, the Texas win came in a dominant upset. At third singles, #61 Micah Braswell rifled through #49 J vd Schulenburg 6-2, 6-1 and was the first singles match to end. The Moral of the story here is that if your star player who also happens to be the best player in the country can't get the snowball moving, no one can.
May 20th at the USTA campus also hosted a semi-final matchup between the two seed TCU Horned Frogs and the Ohio State Buckeyes. The surprise that came from this matchup is not in the fact that Ohio State won (as they are evenly matched teams) but in the fashion in which it came. OSU delivered a knockout 4-0 blow to the Frogs in Lake Nona, and the scoresheet fully represents that. The Frogs actually grabbed the first doubles match at third doubles with #22 Sander Jong and Lui Maxted beating unranked JJ Tracy and Cannon Kingsley 6-4. From there it was all Buckeyes. The #16 pair of James Trotter Andrew Lutschaunig grazed past unranked Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives (7-5) in the breaker while #21 Justin Boulais and Robert Cash upset the second best pair in the nation: Jake Fearnley and Luc Fomba 6-3. Singles was even more convincing, as only three matches were needed to wrap up proceedings and they happened at jet speed. At sixth singles, buckeye Jack Anthrop beat fellow unranked player Lui Maxted 6-2, 6-2. At first singles (which interestingly enough should have been second singles due to the rankings) #24 buckeye Justin Boulais beat #21 Jake Fearnley 6-3, 6-4. And lastly, at fifth singles, #41 Alexander Bernard defeated#92 Sebastian Gorzny 6-4, 6-4. All the other three matches (which featured six singles players in the top 71 of the rankings) were deemed unfinished.
Finals:
The Finals were held on Sunday May 21st, and featured two schools who probably were not favored to be in this position when the tournament began and I'm not sure that I was shocked by the result. The defending champs have breezed by every round convincingly (Kentucky scoring the most against them which is actually a shock in itself) and even upsetting Texas 4-1–so why couldn't they shut out the #3 Ohio State Buckeyes? Well, that is exactly what happened last Sunday: a shutout for the defending champs! In a pattern that almost seems traditional, the loser gets not only one doubles match to their name, but the first one that finishes.
At third doubles, Cannon Kingsley and JJ Tracy defeated Ryan Goetz and Alexander Kiefer 6-3. Here come the Cavs! At second doubles, J von der Schulenburg and Chris Rodesch upset #16 James Trotter and Andrew Lutschaunig 6-2. The doubles point came down to first doubles where #58 Inaki Montes and William Woodall of Virginia also upset #21 Robert Cash and Justin Boulais 6-3. Unlike the semi-final win against Texas, the necessary three singles wins came from the top half of the Cavalier lineup, and all of them were straight set roasts. At third singles, #49 J vd Schulenburg defeated #22 JJ Tracy 6-2, 6-1. At second singles, #26 Inaki Montes upset #11 Cannon Kingsley 6-4, 6-2. Finally, at first singles (marquee matchup of the day) none other than #9 Chris Rodesch breezed past #24 Justin Boulais 6-4, 6-2. Congrats to the Virginia Cavaliers who played unbelievable tennis these past two weeks and are now back to back champs at this tournament!
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Image Credit: NCAA
* Originally published on May 22, 2023, by AJ Rosenberg
