• The KillerFrogs

TCU Men's Tennis 2021-2022

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Norrie lost to FAA in straight sets also. Tough start to the year for Norrie. Although they are playing on a fast indoor court, not his strength. Also he's played two pretty tall right handed players whose backhand is their most reliable/best groundstroke which is the Norrie killer.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Norrie loses again. This time to Fritz who he seems to play constantly. Terrible start to the year for him, although those are three terrible matchups. The odds of getting three tall right handers whose best shot is their backhand is sort of bizarre.
 

MBAFrog91

Member
The Aussie will be starting in 3 weeks or so. He's probably in New Zealand for the summer and will likely play a warm-up or two in the next few weeks either in Auckland or somewhere in Australia. The Aussie will be a good test for him - as the 12th ranked player, he'll probably get a good draw and won't have to play a highly-ranked player until the 4th round.

On the Cracked Racquets podcast interview with Roditi, it was confirmed that Rybo had some kind of surgery, which was why he was out for nearly two months. Roditi is confident about the new season, saying that Fomba and Jong were the likely leaders but that Vives "had a lot of game" and that Jirousek's summer was so good that he might make it into the top 2 as well. Florida, the defending champ and preseason #1, is scheduled for the 14th, but we're apparently added UTRGV as a tune-up match a day or so before that. Roditi also said, however, that the schedule was so tough and that, if we had as many injuries as last year, that we might be lucky to merely go .500.
What was the date on that podcast? Unable to find it.
 

Jared7

Active Member
What was the date on that podcast? Unable to find it.
Go to cracked racquets - search for TCU or their college page. It's there. I think the date was on or about 12/11, but I'm not sure. It's a good interview - Roditi is well-connected in college tennis and conversant on lots of issues.

Norrie lost all three matches in the ATP Cup - Zverev, FAA and Fritz (in 3 sets). Not a good start for the 12th ranked player this year. But all of those are highly ranked and are not easy wins.

UTRGV and #1 Florida are less than a week away. The college tennis season is about to start.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Go to cracked racquets - search for TCU or their college page. It's there. I think the date was on or about 12/11, but I'm not sure. It's a good interview - Roditi is well-connected in college tennis and conversant on lots of issues.

Norrie lost all three matches in the ATP Cup - Zverev, FAA and Fritz (in 3 sets). Not a good start for the 12th ranked player this year. But all of those are highly ranked and are not easy wins.

UTRGV and #1 Florida are less than a week away. The college tennis season is about to start.
Any idea on where Rybakov is going to be? I hope you keep up your weekly/daily posts on where lower ranked guys are. I see Gray is in a Futures next week
 

Jared7

Active Member
The ITA preseason poll has dropped and the Fighting Frogs of lil ole TCU will start out the season ranked #5 in the country. Remember, at this time of year, it's a Coaches Poll and it won't convert to the computer-based system for a number of weeks until enough matches have been played to form a critical mass that is statistically significant. Yes, Florida remains #1. Tomorrow, the Frogs will have a meet-and-greet at Courtside Kitchen from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. - you can meet the team and challenge your favorite player to a game of pickleball, of which Roditi is a big proponent.

Rybo is coming off surgery and hasn't played since Puerto Vallarta in late November. I'm not sure where he'll next be in action. Gray hasn't played since Heraklion and will be at Bath for a Futures event next week (seeded 6th; hard court indoors). Norrie seems likely to play at least one more tune-up prior to the Aussie - either Auckland or Sydney probably.
 

Jared7

Active Member
As we start the 2022 season, here are the current (I think) ATP singles rankings of all the various Frogs (that I could find):

Cameron Norrie - 12
Alex Rybakov - 360
Nick Chappell - 374
Alastair Gray - 523
Gerardo Lopez Villasenor - 618
Pedro Vives Marcos - 744
Tomas Jirousek - 864
Sander Jong - 1161
Juan Carlos Aguilar - 1285
Reese Stalder - 1319 (but 279 in doubles)
Jake Fearnley - 1321

Others (like Fomba, Maxted and Ruehl) are listed as NR or inactive.

There's a new college tennis site and related twitter page - either "John tweets tennis" or NoadNoproblem" to add to the various sites one can check as sources (Parsa Bombs, Bobby Knight, CTR, crackedracquets, Alex Grushkin, ITA etc...). He's picking Tennessee as the 2022 champ over Florida.
 

Jared7

Active Member
At the risk of igniting a political controversy and sending this whole thread to the Pit, I suppose the whole Djokovic situation should be mentioned. He's got 20 Slam titles and is currently tied with Nadal and Federer for the most ever, but Rafa and Fed are currently injured and are either just coming back uncertainly (Nadal) or still in a layoff (Fed), so his chances of solidifying his argument to be the GOAT are at issue in the upcoming Aussie, if he could win it. With that in mind, the Aussie granted him an exemption from the COVID rules requiring a vaccination to participate - he has consistently refused to do so. Which ignited a controversy (especially in Melbourne) where the COVID rules for everyone else are strict. But, the Australian government countered by refusing to issue him a visa. But then, he countered by arriving there anyway in a private plane. So, he is currently being held/detained/sequestered/relaxing (depending on your take) in a 5-star Melbourne hotel, at which counter protests are being held daily either protesting the exemption or the visa denial or the special treatment or the other "refugees" being similarly treated... Cam Norrie will be at the Aussie, so it's kind of relevant to at least one Frog - his chances would increase (even though he's just lost to Zverev, FAA and Fritz) if Djoker doesn't play.

I'm guessing that the "controversy" is over-rated and that he'll eventually play after waiting an appropriate time at the hotel. More money will be made if he plays. But feel free to vent your opinion (and increase the "viewed" count of this thread)!
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Yeah I’ve mostly avoided the Djokovic stuff.

Very interesting. Apparently the hearing will begin at 4pm today (10am tomorrow in Australia) and they anticipate making a ruling at 11pm tonight.

Seems like there was very poor and contradicting information that was provided by the government and by the Australian Open. Ultimately it seems like all parties are in the “right”, the AO just incorrectly told the players that an exemption into the country and tournament would be granted if you were unvaccinated but had a confirmed positive COVID test within the last six months.

Now the secondary controversy is that Djokovics positive result was in early December, and there are photos of him attending public events in the following days. Interesting all around
 

Jared7

Active Member
Djoker won his appeal before the Australian court and has been released from "detention" down under and will presumably play. But the immigration minister - Alex Hawke - is still considering whether to deny the visa regardless. It probably won't happen.
 

Jared7

Active Member
The 5th ranked TCU Horned Frogs will commence the 2022 Spring season tomorrow when they host the UT Rio Grand Valley Vaqueros at 6:00 p.m. (indoors) at the Tennis Center. UTRGV finished 3-15 last year; 0-15 against Division 1 opponents, so this is obviously a tune-up match for the battle against #1 Florida on Saturday and #4 Tennessee next week. This will also be the opener for the Vaqueros. TCU is the only team in the nation to finish in the Top 10 each of the past 7 years; we're 39-9 all-time in season openers and 8-1 all-time against UTRGV. The last time we played them was in 2013; which was a 6-1 W. The Frogs have 4 ranked singles players - #19 Juan Carlos Aguilar, #33 Lui Maxted; #68 Luc Fomba and #76 Jake Fearnley as well as a ranked doubles team in #4 Maxted/Vives. But that doesn't necessarily determine our line-up - only Roditi/Bowen know that; I'm guessing Fomba, Jong, Vives, Aguilar, Jirousek and Fearnley, but I'm sure that'll be wrong. I also suspect that Roditi may experiment with different line-ups early and throughout the season. I expect Ruehl and Maxted will play doubles.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
I'm guessing Fomba, Jong, Vives, Aguilar, Jirousek and Fearnley
I think I agree with this when we're 100%, but didn't Roditi say we had some injuries? Best I can tell, Fearnley's last match was in September when he retired while playing Maxted, and Ruehl didn't play at all in the fall. Roditi made it sound like we'd struggle to get wins early in the season, so I'm worried we might not have those guys available.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
I think I agree with this when we're 100%, but didn't Roditi say we had some injuries? Best I can tell, Fearnley's last match was in September when he retired while playing Maxted, and Ruehl didn't play at all in the fall. Roditi made it sound like we'd struggle to get wins early in the season, so I'm worried we might not have those guys available.

I'm going to go ahead and call it like I see it - our tennis program is having too many injuries. You can certainly have injuries in tennis, but it's somewhat rare for young guys to spend much time injured playing tennis.
 

Jared7

Active Member
I think I agree with this when we're 100%, but didn't Roditi say we had some injuries? Best I can tell, Fearnley's last match was in September when he retired while playing Maxted, and Ruehl didn't play at all in the fall. Roditi made it sound like we'd struggle to get wins early in the season, so I'm worried we might not have those guys available.
I'm hoping that at this stage of the season the injuries are minor and won't prevent play - they had all December to heal up. I'm perhaps more concerned by COVID protocols because of the recent Omicron spike. But Roditi doesn't release detailed injury info (understandably), so I really have no idea where we stand today. Norrie announced that he was COVID-positive, so that may explain why he isn't playing a tune-up before the Aussie as yet. Gray beat Hands 3 and 2 - Storrie will be tougher.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
I'm hoping that at this stage of the season the injuries are minor and won't prevent play - they had all December to heal up. I'm perhaps more concerned by COVID protocols because of the recent Omicron spike. But Roditi doesn't release detailed injury info (understandably), so I really have no idea where we stand today. Norrie announced that he was COVID-positive, so that may explain why he isn't playing a tune-up before the Aussie as yet. Gray beat Hands 3 and 2 - Storrie will be tougher.

I didn't see that info on Norrie. Any issue with his AO availability?
 

Longfrog

Active Member
Also vacating #6 singles. It’s Maxted > Fearnley in singles for now. Could be significant whenever we get PVM and Aguilar back in the lineup.
 
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