• The KillerFrogs

TCU Men's Tennis 2021-2022

FrogUltimate

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Gray gets a qualifier next, and not only a qualifier, but some 18yr old kid playing his first professional tournament ever. Must be somewhat decent to win 4-5 matches in a row out of qualifiers and then in the main draw. That being so, would still really favor Gray here.

Norrie plays Khachanov at 2pm today
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
The ITA rankings are out and this is the final "poll." There will be no rankings next week and the computer system begins on 2/22 (after the Indoors). The Frogs remain 4th, but Ohio State is the new #1. Here it is:

1. Ohio State
2. Tennessee (L)
3. Baylor (on our schedule)
4. the Fighting Frogs of lil ole TCU
5. Florida (W)
6. Wake Forest
7. Virginia (on our schedule)
8. Stanford
9. Wake Forest
10. Kentucky
11. USC
12. A&M
13. South Carolina
14. Texas (on our schedule)
15. Mississippi (W)
16. Harvard
17. Arizona
18. Mississippi State (next)
19. Oklahoma (on our schedule)
20. Michigan (on our schedule)
21. Pepperdine
22. NC State
23. North Carolina
24. Auburn
25. San Diego

If you go by UTR, we'd be 7th. If you go by the CTR computer projection, we'd be 3rd. Mississippi State is 18th in this poll, but 12th in the projection.
 
FrogUltimate

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Jared7 said:
Norrie beats Khachanov 6-4, 7-6 (7-4)!
Click to expand...

Super close. I'd say Norrie's level was pretty close to his year-end 2021 level. Have to remember also that this is a medium fast indoor hard court, hardly Norrie's preference (although this isn't a super fast court). Norrie gets FAA or Murray next, tough draw either way, both guys have top-end backhands.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Gray beat Oliver Tarvet 3 and 4 and has now advanced to the semis at Shrewsbury where he will face Henri Squire, a German with an ATP ranking of #480, who is also a Wake Forest Deac.
 
FrogUltimate

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Gray beat Squire to make the finals. 6-1, 7-6. Really nice tournament so far. I've got him moving up about 40 places to #455 or so. If he wins the finals he should move up another 20 places or so near #435.

He will play a 20 year old wildcar with a ranking of #1,037. Gray should be favored here.

Norrie plays FAA at 12:30
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
#18 Mississippi State is 7-1 on the season; all of the matches at home, so this will be their first road test of the year. They have W's over Middle Tennessee State, UAB, Arkansas, Memphis, North Alabama and Tennessee Tech (twice) and their sole L was in the finals of the ITA Kickoff against then-#11 Kentucky. They are a very good team, bordering on elite status. Their star is Florian Broska, who is a graduate student ranked 20th, his highest ever and he's riding a 12-match win streak. He and Gregor Ramskogler are ranked 32nd in doubles and Nemanja Malesovic and Davide Tortora are ranked 24th. Junior Alberto Colas is also one of their stars.. TCU is 5-3 all-time against the Bulldogs, including the last 3, but State won the sole meeting in Ft. Worth in 2011. We've been developing a good rivalry with them recently - this was the team we faced in a superregional 3 years ago in Starkville. The match is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (I'll be at work).

FAA looked really good beating Murray and is the 3rd seed at Rotterdam (Cam is 6th) so Norrie is probably the underdog today.

Gray is looking at possibly another singles title tomorrow.
 
FrogUltimate

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Norrie falls to FAA in two really tight sets, 7-5, 7-6. At the end of the day, just not quite enough weapons against someone like FAA who is playing really well on hard courts.

One point of issue with Norrie is that his 1st serve % continue to be abysmal for the type of serve he hits. 62% first serve % while averaging 109mph, which is really slow. FAA averaged 60% on first serve, but average speed was 124, huge difference.

On the plus side, if the plays like he did today, he will stay in the top 20 for a while.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Alastair Gray just won yet another ITF singles title today at Shrewsbury with a 7-5, 6-1 W over Harry Wendelken! This is his 4th title since turning full-time pro just last August and he's rocketing up the rankings - into the 400's in that just that short time.

In college tennis news, Ohio State blanked Kentucky last night 4-0; solidifying their status as the top team and the Indoors favorite next weekend. Baylor beat Tulsa and Texas beat Rice. Today's big match is Virginia at Baylor - the Cavs are playing the Bears and the Frogs back-to-back this weekend. The 7th ranked Virginia squad is 5-1 on the season, with W's over Liberty, Richmond, Harvard, Ball State and Georgia Tech and their only L was 0-4 at Ohio State. They're an excellent team - they won 3 NCAA championships in 4 years just a few years ago and have continued playing at a high level. This will be our toughest test since Florida and Tennessee.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
FrogUltimate said:
Norrie falls to FAA in two really tight sets, 7-5, 7-6. At the end of the day, just not quite enough weapons against someone like FAA who is playing really well on hard courts.

One point of issue with Norrie is that his 1st serve % continue to be abysmal for the type of serve he hits. 62% first serve % while averaging 109mph, which is really slow. FAA averaged 60% on first serve, but average speed was 124, huge difference.

On the plus side, if the plays like he did today, he will stay in the top 20 for a while.
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Making the quarters at an ATP500 is a good result for Norrie and should enable him to maintain his ranking. But if he wants to keep moving up, he's going to need to beat guys like FAA, who's Top 10. This will be a tough year for Norrie to continue to improve - there's not a lot more room and everyone will be gunning for him, unlike last year. I'm curious as to why he went to Rotterdam on the indoor hard courts and didn't head to South America on the clay.
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Historically, Virginia is kind of a nemesis for the Frogs. We're 1-5 all-time against the Cavs, with our only W coming in 2004, the first time we ever played them. We lost the only match ever played in Ft. Worth in 2005 and we're 1-2 in Charlottesville. Last year, we lost to them at the Indoors in Champaign 3-4, which was our closest match ever. We won the doubles point and Fomba and Jirousek got singles W's but Carl Soderlund took a close 3-setter over Gray and their depth enabled them to take the other singles matches. We haven't lost a doubles point yet this season and we've got more depth this season, so I think our chances are better. We had a packed house last night at the tennis center with loads of other student-athletes showing up to support the 4th-ranked Frogs - we'll need that kind of support tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.

Our match is huge - but Wake will be at Ohio State in another big one. If there was such a thing as College MatchDay, I wonder where ESPN would be.

At the Dallas Open (at the SMU complex), Jenson Brooksby is into the semis today against Giron and Isner-Opelka is the other semi.
 
FrogUltimate

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Jared7 said:
Making the quarters at an ATP500 is a good result for Norrie and should enable him to maintain his ranking. But if he wants to keep moving up, he's going to need to beat guys like FAA, who's Top 10. This will be a tough year for Norrie to continue to improve - there's not a lot more room and everyone will be gunning for him, unlike last year. I'm curious as to why he went to Rotterdam on the indoor hard courts and didn't head to South America on the clay.
Click to expand...
I was curious about this also. I haven’t looked at the points breakdown, but curious if a quarters in a 500 is equivalent to a semis at a 250
 
Jared7

Jared7

Active Member
Baylor beat Virginia 4-2 today in Waco and they set a new indoor attendance record. They're 11-0. We need to keep pace tomorrow.
 

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