• The KillerFrogs

TCU Men's Tennis 2021-2022

Michigan beat Texas 4-2 while winning the doubles point in the final set tiebreaker. The unfinished #1 singles was tied in a third set tiebreaker. Texas won #4 and #6 singles in straight sets, and #1 doubles. #3 singles went three sets; #5 singles—two tiebreakers. The point being, Michigan had only one “easy” point at #2 singles.

Singles
No. 1 -- No. 27 Ondrej Styler (U-M) vs. No. 69 Eliot Spizzirri (Texas), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 6-6 (3-3) unfinished
No. 2 -- No. 88 Patrick Maloney (U-M) d. No. 26 Micah Braswell (Texas), 6-3, 6-3
No. 3 -- No. 63 Andrew Fenty (U-M) d. No. 34 Pierre-Yves Bailly (Texas), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4
No. 4 -- No. 92 Richard Ciamarra (Texas) d. No. 70 Jacob Bickersteth (U-M), vs. 6-1 6-4
No. 5 -- No. 77 Nino Ehrenschneider (U-M) d. Siem Woldeab (Texas), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4)
No. 6 -- Cleeve Harper (Texas) d. Nick Beaty (U-M), 6-4, 6-2

Doubles
No. 1 -- No. 8 Siem Woldeab/Eliot Spizzirri (Texas) d. No. 24 Nino Ehrenschneider/Andrew Fenty (U-M), 6-4
No. 2 -- Patrick Maloney/Nick Beaty (U-M) d. No. 4 Cleeve Harper/Richard Ciamarra (Texas), 6-1
No. 3 -- Ondrej Styler/Jacob Bickersteth (U-M) d. Chih Chi Huang/Eshan Talluri (Texas), 7-6 (5)

Order of Completion: Doubles 2-1-3, Singles 4-2-6-5-3
 
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Jared7

Active Member
Looks like seeds 1-8 all made the final 8.
Mostly. But #9 Kentucky upset #8 Wake and will be our next opponent on Thursday in Champaign. In theory, they'll be the weakest member of the Elite 8, but at this stage, all teams are hot and confident. The Wildcats finished the SEC season strongly with an upset over Tennessee - they are a legitimate top tier threat. I think a sweep over NC State is impressive. And it accomplished the sort of "floor" for a Roditi team - an elite 8 appearance. But can we go further this year with the supposed advantage of the top seed? We'll see. Roditi may have the team peaking at the right time but we could very well fall in the quarters yet again.
 

MBAFrog91

Member
Mostly. But #9 Kentucky upset #8 Wake and will be our next opponent on Thursday in Champaign. In theory, they'll be the weakest member of the Elite 8, but at this stage, all teams are hot and confident. The Wildcats finished the SEC season strongly with an upset over Tennessee - they are a legitimate top tier threat. I think a sweep over NC State is impressive. And it accomplished the sort of "floor" for a Roditi team - an elite 8 appearance. But can we go further this year with the supposed advantage of the top seed? We'll see. Roditi may have the team peaking at the right time but we could very well fall in the quarters yet again.
Kentucky was the #8 seed, that’s why they hosted the super regional over #9 Wake.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
The point being, Michigan had only one “easy” point at #2 singles.

And that match deserves an asterisk. That was Braswell's first match back in a month. Not sure what his injury was, but if healthy I'm positive he would have won more than 6 games.

The #3 singles match was also weird. Fenty was down 4-1 in the 3rd to Bailly when it was halted due to weather. They waited an hour then moved indoors--which favors Fenty--and Fenty won the last 5 games to take the match.
 
And that match deserves an asterisk. That was Braswell's first match back in a month. Not sure what his injury was, but if healthy I'm positive he would have won more than 6 games.

The #3 singles match was also weird. Fenty was down 4-1 in the 3rd to Bailly when it was halted due to weather. They waited an hour then moved indoors--which favors Fenty--and Fenty won the last 5 games to take the match.
Wow, so the weather delay and move indoors may have flipped #3 singles and the match to Michigan, instead of having the unfinished #1 singles being played out to determine a 4-3 victor.

I am simply looking for any points of encouragement that favor TCU to beat the Maize and Blue, haha. Yes, have to beat Kentucky Wildcats first and all are huge challenge matches now. Frogs versus either Wolverines or Buckeyes would have an underlying revenge variable. Gators and Bears are on the other side of the bracket.
 
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Longfrog

Active Member
College Tennis Questions:

How hard is it for a kid in US schools to get a tennis scholarship in general? I know the top competitive teams recruit heavily on a global scale, but do div II teams also have scholarships? or lower ranked Div I teams?
I'm by no means an expert on the scholarship topic, but here's a link with some info: https://www.ncsasports.org/mens-tennis/scholarships. The key stat is the 4.5 scholarship limit for D1 & D2, which teams can break up among the entire roster as they see fit. Not sure whether some lower level teams play under that limit. They've got a stat that 34 percent of D1 tennis players were international in 2017. And I suspect a lot of the domestic kids play at less competitive schools.

It seems like the top domestic talent flocks to the flagship schools like Ohio State, Florida and Texas. The TCUs of the world have to find overseas talent to compete. It's very do-able, but it does make me annoyed when I occasionally see comments asking why TCU doesn't have more US players (I know you didn't say this). Any school would love to get the cream of the domestic crop, but if you want to compete as a smaller school, you have to go overseas. Baylor also has zero US players in their top 6. Wake won the title in 2018 with an all-international lineup.

But we occasionally find good US players like Rybakov. Our only commit so far for next year is from Florida, and he's very good.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
College Tennis Questions:

How hard is it for a kid in US schools to get a tennis scholarship in general? I know the top competitive teams recruit heavily on a global scale, but do div II teams also have scholarships? or lower ranked Div I teams?

My information is 7-10 years dated, but probably mostly accurate. One of my best friends was ranked #15 in state of Texas and went to a DII school. He got like a 2/3rds athletic scholarship and the school worked with him to get the final 1/3rd academic (he was near 10% academically). You have to be really really good to get a D1 scholarship, and it's likely going to be partial athletically. Unlike football, basketball, baseball you are competing with the entire world, as the US college tennis route is pretty well known these days. A top 20 player in the state of Texas in any of those other sports is easy getting a full athletic to top P5 programs.
 

Endless Purple

Full Member
That is what I figured, which is why I was curious about DII, but it sounds like even then you need to be one of the best in the state.

He is still young (freshman) and only recently started, but at least he enjoys it. See how he progresses.
 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
Norrie is in Lyon on clay this week. He's the #1 seed there as most top players taking the week off before French Open. He got a bye first round, and now playing Cerundolo right now. Cerundolo is #43 in the world and a clay court specialist... tough first match.
 

Longfrog

Active Member
So I guess UK over TCU is the popular upset pick for today. OSU/UM is probably a pick em and everyone thinks Florida is a prohibitive favorite. I don't know why people aren't giving Tennessee more of a shot vs Baylor but whatever.

Preview below does a pretty good job of highlighting each team's strengths. I think we have 2 points we should feel confident about (doubles, #6 singles) while they only have 1 (#2 singles). But I'm basing the call at #6 singles more on it being a weak spot for UK than a particularly strong spot for us.

 

FrogUltimate

Active Member
French Open draw came out.

Norrie got the worst draw possible outside of his first two or three rounds which look decent (although he could get Thiem in round 3). But the big bummer is that he gets Alcaraz in the round of 16 which will end his FO. And then Nadal and Djokovic are in the same half also if Alacaraz gets hurt or something.

The draw is insanely top half loaded...going into the FO I would say equal odds on Djokovic, Nadal and Alcaraz winning it all depending on draw. Now that Nadal and Djokovic get each other in quarters, I think Alacaraz is the favorite.

Good thing Norrie made the super strange decision to play Lyon this week, I wonder if he had done the math and knew he'd get Alcaraz in R16 so needed the points. He just baaarrrely won in 3 sets against Baez so he's into semis at Lyon
 
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