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TCU Tennis

cdsfrog

cdsfrog

Active Member
Who knows Jake, maybe it will help him. A ton of next big male tennis stars went pro early and suck now at the age of 25. Although I will say you were right on A. Zverev. Looks to have everything it takes to become a top 3 player, could be #1 if he builds on it and gains consistency.

Was the youngest top 50 player in the ATP. Now the youngest in the top 10 as well. Massive win over Djokovic for his 4th title
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
The TCU-Ohio State match has been receiving rave reviews with many reports describing it as "the match of the tournament." Being so close (4-3) and being decided in a tie-break on the doubles point and at 6-4 in the 7th and deciding match and being so hard fought with the outcome essentially riding on a point here or a point there and featuring the #1 and #2 players in college tennis today and having a huge crowd (many just arriving for the Georgia match) at the end hanging on every single point made it one of the biggest college tennis thrillers in recent years. It will definitely be remembered by many for awhile. It's too bad that we lost because if we had won, after all the adversity we faced all season (injuries, eligibility, early losses and fighting back from being out of the Top 50), it would even have been more epic.

As expected, Ohio State will face Virginia (who beat Texas 4-1) on Monday. But in the other bracket, upsets ruled. North Carolina pulled off a historic win over Wake Forest and Georgia thrilled the home town crowd by beating UCLA. So those will be the match-ups in the Final 4 and the championship will be live on ESPNU on Tuesday at 12:00 noon for the first time ever on network TV.

But TCU is not done yet. After the team finals, the individual singles and doubles tourneys start and Cam Norrie and Alex Rybakov both qualitifed for the singles and Reese Stalder and Jerry Lopez are in the doubles brackets. Cam would have been seeded #1 and, with wins over Torp, Vuks and Petros Chrysochos, his principal competitors, he would have favored. Alex is #20 but he also has the game to go deep in the brackets. No TCU player has ever won the singles tourney or the doubles. The best ever has been the semis (Cam last year when he lost to Torp) and in the doubles, I know Jason Weir-Smith and Ashley Fisher made the semis in 1996. We have good chances to do better than that this year! We're not done yet! The ride isn't over yet! The draws will be announced after the team competition concludes. I agree about all the glowing comments about Norrie - if he played in the singles he would have had a great chance. But if Cam is not going to enter, maybe Alex can win it - collectively, they were 40-2 this Spring and Alex hasn't lost a match since January (to NU's Sam Shropshire).
 
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Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Well, having just found out that Cam will be skipping the NCAA's singles tourney in order to qualify for the French and then Wimbledon, I edited the above. I agree that Norrie is perhaps the greatest TCU tennis player ever - achieving the #1 ranking, making All-American 3 straight years (presumably), making the semis last year, being selected the Big12 Player of the Year twice, leading the team to three consecutive NCAA tourneys (and making the Final 4, the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 in consecutive years), making the U.K. Davis Cup team while still in college and being selected TCU Athlete of the Year just a few weeks ago. David Pate, Sandon Stolle, Roditi, Paul Robinson, Jason Weir-Smith, Ashley Fisher, Esteban Carril, Nick Chappell and many others are in that list, but Norrie probably tops them all.
 
cdsfrog

cdsfrog

Active Member
Jared7 said:
Well, having just found out that Cam will be skipping the NCAA's singles tourney in order to qualify for the French and then Wimbledon, I edited the above. I agree that Norrie is perhaps the greatest TCU tennis player ever - achieving the #1 ranking, making All-American 3 straight years (presumably), making the semis last year, being selected the Big12 Player of the Year twice, leading the team to three consecutive NCAA tourneys (and making the Final 4, the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 in consecutive years), making the U.K. Davis Cup team while still in college and being selected TCU Athlete of the Year just a few weeks ago. David Pate, Sandon Stolle, Roditi, Paul Robinson, Jason Weir-Smith, Ashley Fisher, Esteban Carril, Nick Chappell and many others are in that list, but Norrie probably tops them all.
Click to expand...

If norrie plays in Wimbledon I'm definitely going to that one. Really hoping to avoid camping out, only ticket sales Gods be nice to me
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
jake102 said:
FWIW I don't see Norrie in the French Open qualifying draw.... not really sure what he's doing.
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Well, he tweeted last night that he's headed for England immediately to "kick start [my] pro career." So, he may not play at Roland Garros, but he's probably going to play the grass court tourneys in the lead-up to Wimbledon. He's probably going to try his hand at the Aegon Series Challengers first.

Also, TCU just missed out on Daniel Cukierman, the ATP #534 21-year old player from Israel who had visited TCU, USC, Ohio State and Virginia - he committed to USC today.

The semis are ongoing right now - OSU won the doubles point but UVa. has stormed back and leads 3-1. UNC won the doubles point over Georgia.
 
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Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Well, if we were still in Athens, we'd be getting drenched - rain and lightning has suspended both matches and each has tightened (3-2 in both). Saturday, there was a 6-hour delay in the Georgia-UCLA match. Virginia and UNC are leading, but Georgia leads UNC in the remaining two singles matches.

Yeah, we got a bad draw, but that's tennis. The seeds were based on the ITA rankings and we were 6th. The Committee occasionally makes adjustments but didn't do so with us. The counter-argument is that we should have beaten Northwestern, Utah State and Columbia if we wanted a higher seed. And we were definitely hurt by Tech and OU pulling off upsets in the Big12 tourney - both USC and UCLA moved past us because they played higher ranked teams in their tourney.
 
jake102

jake102

Active Member
Jared7 said:
The counter-argument is that we should have beaten Northwestern, Utah State and Columbia if we wanted a higher seed.
Click to expand...

The team was completely different in those first two months. If there was ever a good excuse for a committee to move a team, it was with us. We were destroyed by injuries early in the season and those losses were obviously bogus.

I'm so tired of feeling like we are destined to receive last minute screw jobs in every sport.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
After hours of a rain delay, they finally moved indoors and it'll be North Carolina (4-3 over Georgia) v. Virginia (4-2 over Ohio State) in the championship finals tomorrow.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
The singles and doubles draws have been announced - in the absence of Cam Norrie, Mikael Torpegaard is the #1 seed in singles. Alex Rybakov is unseeded (although effectively #19) and he'll face Tennessee's Timo Stodder in the first round. If he wins and advances, he'll play the winner of the match between #6 seeded Alfredo Perez and Aron Hiltzik from Illinois, who he just beat in the team tourney. Perez is very good, so Rybo won't be favored there, but if he advances further, he'll likely play Ohio State's J.J. Wolf, whom he also just beat.

Reese Stalder and Jerry Lopez are also unseeded and will open against Michigan's duo of Jathan Malik and Connor Johnston and, if they win that, against the winner of Cal's (5-8) seeded team of Filip Bergevi and Florian Lakat and Duke's Spencer Furman and Nick Stachowiak. The top seeds in their bracket are Florida's Perez and Johannnes Ingildson. Upsets do happen in the singles and doubles - usually more frequently than in the team competition.

After yet another rain delay the men's finals have been moved indoors and have just started between Virginia and North Carolina, who have played 3 times already this season, with Virginia winning all 3. This is the first time a conference has closed out the finals since the SEC did it in 2001. Virginia is obviously favored and if they win, it'll be their third straight championship and 4th out of the last 5. Thankfully, their coach (Brian Boland) is moving on. It's live on ESPNU, with Patrick McEnroe doing the commentary. The Cavs just won the doubles point on deciding breaker 7-6 (7-5).
 
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Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
It was a tough match, but Alex won 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 over Tennessee's Timo Stodder and advances to the Round of 32 against the winner of the Perez-Hiltzik match. Stalder and Lopez don't start play until tomorrow. If it's #6 seeded Perez, it'll be a real tough match for Alex to win. According to the ITA rankings, Perez should be favored - he's 7th and Rybo is 20th. But according to the ITF rankings, Alex should be favored; Perez is #1529 and Rybo is #904. Also, 4 pairs of shoes were stolen from the TCU locker "van" on Saturday during the quarters in Athens.

Perez won 6-4, 6-1.
 
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Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Rybakov just lost to Perez 3-6, 7-5, 4-6 and his incredible winning streak comes to an end in the Round of 32. Only Stalder/Lopez now remain in the doubles.
The ITA released their final team rankings this morning and TCU finished 8th. (Last year, we finished 3rd and only made the Round of 16; this year we made the Round of 8 and finished 8th). Here are the rankings:
1. Virginia (duh). They just hired a new coach today.
2. Wake Forest
3. North Carolina
4. Ohio State
5. UCLA
6. USC
7. Georgia
8. TCU
9. Baylor
10. Cal
11. Texas
12. A&M
13. OU
15. Oklahoma State
32. Tech
40. SMU

The TCU women finished 28th. The women's champ was Florida.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Yes!! Stalder/Lopez split the first two sets 6-3, 3-6 and then went on to a super tiebreak against the Michigan team and they just won 10-8 in the super breaker to advance to the next round!! Cal's Bergevi/Lakat probably next up!
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
The final USTA poll came out this morning and TCU fared a little better than in the ITA rankings; finishing 5th in the nation. The "humans" saw it as:

1. Virginia
2. North Carolina
3. Ohio State
4. Wake Forest
5. TCU
6. Georgia
7. UCLA
8. USC
9. Texas
10. OU
11. Cal
12. Baylor
13. A&M
14. Florida
15. Oklahoma State
16. Stanford

The TCU women finished 22nd. Reese Stalder and Jerry Lopez will face Cal's Bergevi/Lakat at 1:00 p.m.
 

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