• The KillerFrogs

2018 TCU Tennis Thread

Longfrog

Active Member
Since the tennis season is underway, it seemed appropriate to start a new thread. Last week, the Frogs took care of Abilene Christian and Arizona State. I think this is ASU's first season back after a decade-long hiatus, but they do have a couple of ranked players, so they're no pushovers. The Frogs took it 5-2, dropping singles matches at the #4 & #6 spots. The schedule this year is formidable as usual, but I wouldn't expect the first real challenge until Feb 6 when the Frogs travel to Chapel Hill to take on #3 UNC. TCU enters the season ranked #10.

As for the season outlook, the top trio of Alex Rybakov/Trevor Johnson/Alastair Gray should be strong. It hurts not having the best player in the nation anymore, but those three should win at least two singles matches most of the time. I assume we're familiar with Rybakov. Gray had a great fall campaign and looks like a top 50 player. I don't know the story on why he wasn't eligible last season, but it does make you wonder what if. Meanwhile, Johnson had some major wins on the Futures circuit, topping several former college stars. It looks like he's really taken a step forward after some recent injuries.

Speaking of injuries, Guillermo Nunez is playing again after surgery last summer. He lost his match against ASU so I think you'd have to say he's still a pretty big question mark this year. Reese Stalder is another one who looks like he's reached another level... I expect him to win a lot of matches at #5 if he stays there. Apparently the South African freshman Bertus Kruger has the inside track for the last singles spot. I can't say I know much about him but he comes in with some promise. We do have some other candidates with fellow freshmen Juan Martin, Max Kurzban and Eduardo Roldan.

I should also add the women are ranked #25 and have notched a couple wins against lesser competition. They face #23 Ole Miss on Friday.
 

MTfrog5

Active Member
I assumed it wasn’t going to be a fun year since we haven’t had any updates from our tennis guru. Thanks for the update!
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Here are the preseason team rankings in the Big 12. The conference coaches chose UT and TCU as co-favorites...

UT (8)
TCU (10)
Baylor (11)
OSU (15)
OU (18)
Tech (25)

UT is going to be a handful, as I think they returned everyone from last year. They have 4 players ranked in the top 100 in preseason (TCU has 2). Baylor is always good, but they had some turnover and will be playing a few freshmen, I think. The coaches picked them fifth in the Big 12 after the two Oklahoma schools. My sense is that OU is more dangerous than OSU despite the rankings, but I guess we'll see.
 

jake102

Active Member
Worried about #6 singles spot. It was a black hole during injuries last year and worried it will be that way this entire season.

That being said, we should have three guys ranked top 50, and if Nunez comes around could have four guys easily inside top 100.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Worried about #6 singles spot. It was a black hole during injuries last year and worried it will be that way this entire season.

It was a disaster before we got Johnson back. And even after he came back it was iffy at best. Hard to believe that I feel good about having him playing in the top 3 now.

I think it's a little early to be too concerned, but you would have liked to see Kruger take care of business over the weekend. At a minimum, I think we'll be spared the slew of double-bagel losses we had in the first half of last season.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Tomorrow TCU plays UC-San Diego in the ITA Kickoff Weekend. It's basically a mini tournament, with the winner facing the Louisville-Duke winner on Sunday. There are 15 of these going on around the country, and the winners plus a host school (U. Washington) will compete in the National Indoor Tournament in 3 weeks. You could look at it as being a 64-team national tournament (or 61 since the host school gets a bye), with a long break in the middle.

Tennis uses computer rankings which give you lots of points for beating good teams but don't really penalize you for losing to good teams. So getting into that tournament is important since it gives you a low-risk opportunity to pad your ranking. You may remember last year when we lost to Utah State early in the season... that was the ITA kickoff. It had us fighting uphill all year ranking-wise and ultimately cost us at nationals when we had to play #3 seed Ohio State in the quarters.

So with that said, TCU ought to win both of these matches, but there are no guarantees. And losing would be a small disaster.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
I will also add that the setup for this tournament is kind of fascinating. There are no committees assigning teams to various locations... they hold a draft. The 15 highest seeds from the previous season get to host. Then they start with the best non-host school and they get their pick of any of the host sites to play at. Then the next-highest ranked team picks, and down the list they go until all 15 sites have 4 teams each.

TCU's pod is pretty average. The other teams are #34 Louisville, #35 Duke & #49 UCSD. That means that when they were doing the draft, Louisville chose to come to our site, and then on the very next pick Duke did the same, knowing they would be opening up against Louisville. The two are obviously both in the ACC as well, and Duke beat Louisville in the regular season last year. You wonder if there's something between those two teams.

It also means UCSD chose to play us. They had a much closer option, since the last spot in the USC pod was also available. But they chose to come to Ft Worth. Hopefully we make them regret that choice.
 

ftwfrog

Active Member
Just lost to USD.

4-3

Lost the doubles point on a tiebreak.


& With the match tied 3-3 we lost our last singles point in a tiebreak.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Welp. That was a tough one. I wasn't able to watch much except the end. College tennis can be one of the more frustrating experiences when you win all your points easily and then all the close matches go against you. As roditi said post match, all the matches they were in, they won.

With that said, this bodes pretty poorly for the rest of the season. San Diego may end up being pretty good, but a top 10 team doesn't lose to them at home. And unlike last year's loss to Utah State, we can't blame the result on injuries. I'll be pretty interested to see how we respond tomorrow.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
We can't blame the result on injuries.

Now that the scores are posted, it looks like I spoke too soon, as Gray had to retire on #3. Not that it's an excuse. I remember when we struggled out of the gates last year and roditi questioned our conditioning. I hope that wasn't a factor today but a default and losing two other 3rd sets doesn't look good.

Hope Gray is ok though.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Beat me to the punch ftw. The Frogs only dropped one set in blowing away the Cardinals. Alastair Gray did not play after defaulting mid-match yesterday. Meanwhile, Duke beat San Diego 4-0 to earn the trip to indoor nationals out of our draw.

The Frogs will not be the only team unexpectedly watching that tournament from the sidelines. The Big 12 had 5 of its 6 teams hosting in the preliminary stage, but three of them were upset, with OU and Texas also bowing out. But the biggest shocker - on paper at least - was 3-time defending champ Virginia dropping both their matches at home to Texas Tech and Ole Miss. They are in a rebuilding year and some of their few returning players haven't been on the court recently... don't know why.

TCU has some time to get some things ironed out before heading out east to play #3 UNC a week from Tuesday.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Cam Norrie is playing a big match right now representing Great Britain in Davis Cup. He was down 2 sets to none to Spain's Roberto Bautista-Agut and is now serving to send it to a fifth set. RBA is #10 in the world, and they're playing in Spain on a surface that I would think favors the Spaniard (clay). The match is now over 3 hours, so I'm guessing these are uncharted waters for Norrie, as well. On the bright side, the college experience probably prepares him well for this type of atmosphere.

It would easily be the biggest win ranking-wise of Norrie's pro career and would also earn him a lot more fans in Britain.

Live scoring link.
 
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