Last week, we saw the Virginia Cavaliers win back to back Division 1 National team championships. Texas schools including the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Christian University (TCU) were upset as the #1 and #2 seeds both did not lift the title. Now this past week, some of the same stars who dominated the courts last week, get to put on their school's logo and colors again–but this time for themselves.
Now these players don't have to stress themselves out about the results from the doubles matches, or their other teammate's singles matches that occur right next to them. In other words, they don't have to worry about things that they honestly can't control. This week, the boat sinks or swims because of you and you yourself. For a lot of the nation's star players, a lot of the first two rounds are against relatively weaker players, even if they made the 64 player draw. Unlike the team championship bracket, not every player had an assigned seed, but the talent was dispersed pretty evenly with the top 8 players all in different regions (2 to each). As more than two players in each region are worth recognition, and the first two rounds were straightforward for the stars; we will start the in depth coverage of the men who made it to the Round of 16 and then some.
Related: Serving Up Postseason Action: Men's NCAA Tennis Championship Recap
Top Left Region:
Many of my previous articles that covered the team championships have mentioned the name Elliot Spizzirri, and for good reason. He is the #1 singles player in the nation and is half of the #3 doubles pair in the nation, and played for what was the best team in the nation at UT-Austin, until the Cavaliers from Virginia won the tournament. A previous article had already outlined some of his accomplishments on the lower levels of the professional tour, so I won't do it again, but I will talk about his previous rounds. Spizzirri, the number one seed of the entire field, got #51 Tyler Stice of Auburn in the first round (ITA Rankings last updated May 4th), and won very comfortably in straight sets 6-2, 6-1. Then, Elliot took on #49 Jeffrey Von der Schulenberg of none other than the Virgina Cavs and also won easily 6-3, 6-4. Von der Schulenberg had a nice first round win over #22 JJ Tracy of Ohio State University 6-4, 6-4. After two nice wins, Spizzirri was ready to face #52 Pedro Rodenas of Duke in the Round of 16.
While Rodenas was clearly not a step up in rankings from the previous rounds (ironically the lowest of the three) Pedro is not to be taken lightly. He upset #29 Steven Forman of Northwestern University in the first round 6-4, 6-3. Rodenas then had another great upset win in the second round, beating #14 Sebastian Dominko of Notre Dame in three sets 6-4,1-6, 6-4. Collegiate tennis and American tennis for the most part is played on hard courts, but Pedro has shown his versatility recently on the ITF and boys circuit. Last summer, he made the semi-finals of the boys Wimbledon competition (on grass courts) and then the next tournament he played was a M15 on clay in Xativa Spain; where he lifted the trophy in the first week of August. These results have earned him an ATP ranking of 793. As I said, Rodenas was not going to be a walk in the park, and it took Spizzirri everything he had as he narrowly edged out the win in straight sets, 7-5 in the first set and a second set breaker (7-3).
Related: NCAA Men's Tennis Team Tournament R16 Recap and Quarterfinal Predictions
On the bottom half of the region lies the #8 seed in the draw: Ondrej Styler of the Michigan Wolverines. He got a tougher first round assignment with #25 Stefan Dostinic of the University of Southern California. Stefan's talent was evident in the first set going to a breaker, but one Styler got that first set, he acquired all the momentum and won the second set 6-2. In the second round he faced #69 Daniel De Jonge of Pepperdine, and came through 7-4 in the third set breaker. Ondrej has won two professional exhibition tournaments in his home country of the Czech Republic, most notably beating fellow Czech and top 40 player in the world Jiri Lehecka in June of 2020 in these special tournaments. Styler has done more damage on the doubles side, where he won the Boys French Open Doubles in 2018, and made the final of Boys Wimbledon right after that as well. Interestingly enough, Styler's doubles partner in the 2017 edition of the Boys French Open Doubles was another current top 40 player: clay court specialist Sebastian Baez of Argentina.
Styler in the Round of 16 faced off against #36 Michael Zheng of Columbia University. Zheng defeated #48 Olle Wallin of Texas Tech University easily in the first round 6-2, 6-0 and then beat #63 Gavin Young of Michigan 6-3, 3-6, 6-0. Zheng had two bagels in the first two rounds and that is impressive on hard courts. While he hasn't won a low level pro title yet, Zheng has shown proficiency on all surfaces just like Pedro Rodenas. In April of 2022, Zheng made the final of M15 Orange Park, Florida (clay); only losing to ATP top 60 player Yibing Wu (Wu is the first Chinese man to win an ATP event after winning ATP Dallas this past February). Then in early July, Zheng made the final of Boys Wimbledon (grass). Zheng with an ATP ranking of 1369 actually played his first challenger level match today (May 28th 2023) and won in straight sets against Marius Copil in Little Rock, Arkansas. While he may have won today, Styler got the better of Zheng on the 24th in two tight tie breakers (8-6) and (7-5).
Top Right Region:
The first man to make the Round of 16 from this part of the draw, is another man who lifted the team title last week: Chris Rodesch. Rodesch in the draw was given a marker of 9-16 to indicate his seed as that is how they marked you if you are ranked in that space. Rodesch, #9 in the nation, beat #39 Peter Makk of USC in the first round 7-6, 6-2 and then beat #59 Joshua Lapadat of the Kentucky Wildcats in a third set breaker in the second round (7-2). Chris, with a current ATP ranking of 742 has seemed to fancy the clay, as he made the final of M15 Duffel, Belgium in mid June of 2022, and then lifted the trophy at an M15 in Vejle Denmark on July 31st 2022. With fellow player from Luxembourg Alex Knaff, Rodesch lifted the doubles title at that same tournament in Duffel and then won an M25 with Knaff in their home country in Esch/Alzette. Rodesch would go on to play Axel Nefve in the Round of 16.
Nefve is the #32 ranked singles player in the country, who represent the gator program at the University of Florida. Axel, got a huge win in the first round of the tournament against Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc in three sets 6-3, 1-6, 6-3. Not only was it a solid upset as Cornut-Chauvinc is the #7 player in the nation, but he represents the Florida State Seminoles so it was a big rivalry match. The second round was a bit quieter as he beat #40 Jonas Ziverts of Arizona in three sets as well (7-6, 2-6, 6-3.) While Nefve, has an ATP ranking of 1329, he has no significant results from the ITF level. Rodech, a class above Nefve came through in come from behind fashion 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Related: Daily Grind: A Day in the Life of a Brown University Tennis Player
On the bottom half of the region is a pair of surprises. #65 Andre Ilagan of the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors would face off against #41 Alexander Bernard of Ohio State in the Round of 16. The man from Hawaii would start his campaign hot against #44 Patrick Maloney of Michigan in the first round 6-3, 6-3. He then completed another upset against #54 Texas Longhorn Siem Woldeab in straight sets 7-5, 6-4. Andre's best results on the circuit are back to back hard court M15 semi-finals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in late July of 2022, and then Kuching, Malaysia in August of 2022. Speaking of names mentioned in this article, Ilagan's most recent ITF match was against Chris Rodesch's pro doubles partner Alex Knaff where Andre lost in a third set breaker in mid November of last year (M15 East Lansing, Michigan). Buckeye Alex Bernard, would start of his tournament against #53 Raphael Perot of Texas A&M in three sets (3-6, 6-3, 7-5). He then beat #56 Samir Banerjee of Stanford by retirement in the third set which is really interesting, even though Bernard was up 3-1 anyway. 2022 on the ITF circuit treated the 19 year old Buckeye very well. Bernard made two straight semi-finals at M15 Cancun 6 and 7 in late May and early June. At Cancun 6, he lost to rising pro star Brandon Holt, who is the son of two time women's US open champion Tracy Austin (1979,1981). Alexander in his last pro outing lifted the trophy at M25 Columbus, Ohio 2 in November, actually winning the final by retirement where he was up 3-1 in the third set as well. Crazy coincidence! The M25 win lifted him to an ATP ranking of 648. In the round of 16, Bernard would go on to beat Andre Ilagan 6-1, 6-7, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal clash against Rodesch.
Other Notables from Top Half of Draw:
#14 Sebastian Dominko who lost to Rodenas had a nice 6-4, 6-3 win over #35 Henry Von der Schulenburg of Harvard. Dominko, with a current ATP ranking of 991 had his best result at home in an M25 in Radomlje Slovenia on clay where he made the semis in July of 2022. The #4 player in the country: Melios Efstathiou of Cyprus and Wake Forest lost in the first round. Melios, with a current ATP ranking of 911 made the final of an M15 in Ithaca, New York in November of 2022.
Lastly, is #12 Garrett Johns of Duke. Duke lost to Longhorn Siem Woldeab in the first round as well (6-4, 6-4). Johns has a current ATP ranking of 677 and lifted the title at M15 Memphis, Tennessee right before this past school year began in late August of 2022. Since then, he has actually flirted with the challenger level, nicking a win here and there.
Stay tuned for the second half of the draw and coverage of the deeper rounds of the Division 1 men's singles tournament!
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Image Credit: Hawaii Athletics/Michigan Daily
* Originally published on May 31, 2023, by AJ Rosenberg
