• The KillerFrogs

TCU Men's Tennis - 2020-2021

Jared7

Active Member
Unfortunately, Tomas lost his first finals this morning 2-6, 5-7 to Wenger at Poprad, so no pro title for him yet. But cruising through to the finals is a very good result for him and should elevate his ATP rating a bit and earn him his biggest paycheck ever.
 

Jared7

Active Member
It seemed weird but there were no Frogs in action last week. The first to resurface is Alex Rybakov, who is now in Baja at the Los Cabos Open, an ATP 250 event that Rybo is trying to qualify for. His concentrated play in the Spring in Europe enabled Alex to rise up to a ATP#404 ranking, his career high and that's good enough to get him at least into the qualies for an ATP event. He won his opening match yesterday against Gage Brymer (a former UCLA Bruin, with an ATP ranking of #510) 4 and 3 and he'll be playing Ernesto Escobedo, who is ATP#181 at 7:00 p.m. tonight. Rybo won't be favored and it would be an enormous upset if he could win and qualify for the main draw.
 

Jared7

Active Member
Rybakov lost to Escobedo last night 2-6, 6-7 (3-7) so his attempt to make the main draw at an ATP250 event failed. It's a good move for him to try his hand at a level way above the Futures level, but the downside is that when he fails to make the main draw, he makes no money and earns no ATP points. I think he should try to make Challengers - there are two coming up at Cary (N.C.) and Lexington.

As Longfrog said, Cam is already into the main draw and is the top seed.
 

Jared7

Active Member
As the top seed at Los Cabos, Cam will get a bye in the first round and will play the winner between Elias Ymer (Sweden - ATP#169) and qualifier Matthew Ebden (Australia - ATP#247) . Then, if form holds, he'll face Taylor Fritz in the 3rd round and potentially John Isner in the finals. Los Cabos is on hard courts; which will be a switch from the clay and grass that Cam has been playing on for months. Norrie is now up to ATP#30, his CH.

Jerry Lopez is also at Los Cabos - he plays 6th seeded Steve Johnson tonight.
 

Jared7

Active Member
Jerry Lopez (o Gerardo Lopez Villasenor si prefiere espanol) ended up losing to Stevie Johnson last night 6-7 (4-7) 2-6 so only Norrie remains in singles at Los Cabos. Cam will find out who he opens up against tonight in singles. It would have been cool if Norrie and Rybo (or Lopez) would have teamed up in doubles, but I'm guessing that neither Alex nor Jerry had a high enough ranking to get that to happen. Cam originally was entered in the doubles with Lloyd Glasspool, but Glasspool withdrew from the whole tourney late and there might not have been enough time for Norrie to re-schedule with a Frog partner.
 

jake102

Active Member
As the top seed at Los Cabos, Cam will get a bye in the first round and will play the winner between Elias Ymer (Sweden - ATP#169) and qualifier Matthew Ebden (Australia - ATP#247) . Then, if form holds, he'll face Taylor Fritz in the 3rd round and potentially John Isner in the finals. Los Cabos is on hard courts; which will be a switch from the clay and grass that Cam has been playing on for months. Norrie is now up to ATP#30, his CH.

Jerry Lopez is also at Los Cabos - he plays 6th seeded Steve Johnson tonight.

Believe Norrie will get McDonald in the Quarters which will be interesting... he's currently rated like #100 but that's due to injury. He's a top 60 type player. Then Fritz in Semis.
 

Jared7

Active Member
If it happens, MackieMack is a good player. He's a former NCAA champ (and probably the best of the recent lot). It's weird that the NCAA champs have not done all that well in the pros. Ryan Shane is bouncing around the Futures and Paul Jubb isn't ranked very high either. This year's champ - Sam Riffice - has a chance to do well, but he's got another year or two at Florida.. (Cam could have been a NCAA champ, but he decided to forego the NCAA's in 2017 to immediately go pro).
 

jake102

Active Member
If it happens, MackieMack is a good player. He's a former NCAA champ (and probably the best of the recent lot). It's weird that the NCAA champs have not done all that well in the pros. Ryan Shane is bouncing around the Futures and Paul Jubb isn't ranked very high either. This year's champ - Sam Riffice - has a chance to do well, but he's got another year or two at Florida.. (Cam could have been a NCAA champ, but he decided to forego the NCAA's in 2017 to immediately go pro).

I'd ignore the NCAA champ and look at who ended the year #1 pre-tournament. Norrie, McDonald and Koepfer have all been very good.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Believe Norrie will get McDonald in the Quarters which will be interesting... he's currently rated like #100 but that's due to injury. He's a top 60 type player. Then Fritz in Semis.

Saw a tweet today that there are now 9 former college guys in the top 100 in the world. I think it was Rinderknech that just joined. McDonald knocking on the door too.

Wonder if Brooksby would count? Seems like it's only a matter of time for him.
 

jake102

Active Member
Saw a tweet today that there are now 9 former college guys in the top 100 in the world. I think it was Rinderknech that just joined. McDonald knocking on the door too.

Wonder if Brooksby would count? Seems like it's only a matter of time for him.

Brooksby will definitely be top 100, but I'm not sure he's got much more than about #50 in the world in him. He's got a super goofy game, so it may surprise me.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Brooksby will definitely be top 100, but I'm not sure he's got much more than about #50 in the world in him. He's got a super goofy game, so it may surprise me.

I saw him play for about 5 minutes and the only thing that stood out was how atrocious his serve is. But I assume the rest of the game must be pretty good if he can still get into the top 50.
 

jake102

Active Member
I saw him play for about 5 minutes and the only thing that stood out was how atrocious his serve is. But I assume the rest of the game must be pretty good if he can still get into the top 50.

Like I said, his game is super funky. The best, well known comp I can come up with is Andy Murray. But add some questionable forehand mechanics, a two handed backhand slice and two handed backhand volley. I think he hits overheads with a different grip than the entire rest of the ATP also. When I've watched him you wonder how he isn't getting beat 6-1, 6-1 but somehow wins points. He does have the ability to all of a sudden hit a giant shot, kind of like Murray.
 

Jared7

Active Member
I'd ignore the NCAA champ and look at who ended the year #1 pre-tournament. Norrie, McDonald and Koepfer have all been very good.
That's perhaps a better predictor. Just for fun, I looked up some of the recent champs and top seeds just to see where they rank now. Petros Chrysochos is #359; Thai-son Kwiatkowski is # 226; Mikael Torpegaard is #216; Oliver Crawford is #416; J.J. Wolf is #151; Steve Johnson (a 2-time champ who beat Lopez) is #83. Of those, having seen him play, I thought Torp was a lock to do well - he is the highest rated Danish player but is nowhere near as good as I thought he'd be.

Another stat I found while looking for those is that TCU, with 31 NCAA appearances, has the 9th highest number of NCAA appearances ever.

Also, Rybo can't go to the Cary Challenger as it has already started. So, ,it was a choice of going there or Los Cabos, and he decided on the ATP250 rather than a Challenger. It was a greater risk for a possibly greater reward, but it didn't pan out. if only he could have beaten Escobedo, he'd be playing MackieMack now with a potential shot at Norrie.
 

Jared7

Active Member
Escobedo just beat McDonald 3 and 4. And Ymer leads Ebden 7-5, 3-love currently. Cam's chances at his first ATP title are increasing...and he has yet to play a round or even know who his first opponent will be.
 

Jared7

Active Member
Cam beat Ymer but not as easily as it could have been - 7-6 (7-4), 6-3. Next up will be Escobedo (who eliminated Rybo) presumably tomorrow.
 

Jared7

Active Member
Norrie v. Escobedo is now live on the Tennis Channel and Cam leads 4-love in the first set.

Cam takes the first set 6-1. He didn't look all that good against Ymer, but he's cruising tonight and looks like he'll be into the semis shortly to play the winner between Taylor Fritz and Steve Johnson.
 
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Jared7

Active Member
Norrie advances to the semis at Los Cabos with a 6-1, 6-1 blow-out W over Escobedo. He really looked like one of the top players in the world tonight.
 
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