Dannythomas wrote:

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 And here are the April  9th  womens D1 rankings (previous list rankings in brackets )

 

As predicted a nice jump in rankings for Vic following her win this week

 

5 (5) Millie Rajecki

29 (46) Vic Allen 

35 (37) Angelica Blake 

63 (56) Grace Piper

121 (115)  Destinee Martins 

122 (n/r) Sofia Johnson 

 

Doubles

10 ( 15 ) Rajecki/ Zampardo

28  (26) Adeshina/ Cabezas

30 (29 ) Allen / Bissett

35 (35 ) Reuter / Honey 

42 (37 ) Cross / Spink

56 (54) Piper  /Fry

83 (69)  Staff/ Ray 

 

 

Team

1 (1) Oklahoma State

2 (2)  Michigan 

3 ( 5)  Stanford 

4 (6) UNC 

5 (4) Virginia

6 (7) Georgia 

7 ( 3 ) Pepperdine

8 (8) Texas

9 ( 10) California 

10 (9 ) Southern California 

 

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-- Edited by Dannythomas on Wednesday 3rd of April 2024 12:42:10 PM

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This week was the ITA National Wheelchair Championships. There was British representation - Martha Harris (Alabama) - in the top coed flight for the individuals championships. The matches in these championships for the top flight were to determine seedings for the semi-finals and finals, which for the first time will take place at the NCAA Div 1 individuals championships in Stillwater at the end of May. Martha won all 3 of her matches and goes to Stillwater as #1 seed. Bravo Martha.

In the match of the weekend, Tennessee travelled to Kentucky in a decider for the SEC league crown. As Tennessee went into the dual with 1 defeat on their record and Kentucky was undefeated in conference play, Tennessee had to win to share the title with Kentucky, otherwise Kentucky would win the title outright. Wins for Johannus in the singles and doubles wasn't enough for Tennessee as Kentucky won the match 4-3 and with it the conference title. They'll now travel to Baton Rouge for the SEC Championships at the end of this week. Joining them will be Toby Samuel's South Carolina.

The men's and women's TCU programmes also wrapped up their regular season play this weekend with another win and finished 3rd in the Big 12 conference. JPJ dropped the first set against #115 ranked Cronje but came back to win in 3. Lui Maxted did the opposite, winning the first set but dropping the next two to have a rare loss. JPJ is 27-7 in singles play, 9-2 on court one this season and 20-6 against ranked opponents. TCU played the entire league season without Jake Fearnley. I don't know what his injury is or if he will be able to return before the National Championships. TCU finish 3rd in the conference standings and will play Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championships on Friday who they beat 4-0 in regular season play.

On the women's TCU programme, senior Destinee Martins moved up to the court 1 position at the beginning of the month after starting the year on court 3. She's 10-4 for the season and 1-2 on court 1. Waiting for confirmation of conference championships match.

A few of our women play in the ACC and wrapped up their season today. Millie Rajecki (NC State) finished with a dominant doubles (6-1) and singles (3&1) victory, Vic Allen & Millie Bissett (Florida State) didn't have a good last day with them losing their doubles and Millie losing her singles match, while Vic's singles match against Anabelle Xu was unfinished with Vic a set down. Kylie Bilchev won her doubles and singles for Georgia Tech but Given Roach lost her doubles. All now head to the ACC championships later this week. Georgia Tech is seeded 5 and will play either Boston College or Clemson on Thursday. The winner will go on to play 4th seeded NC State on Friday. Florida State is seeded 3 will play either Louisville, Miami or Virginia Tech on Friday.

Some teams will wrap up their regular season next weekend with their conference championships the week after.

I've also just watched Indy Spink play for Arkansas. I am guessing she was playing with an injury as she served underarm for the entire match, but somehow she still managed to win 4 & 2. I've no idea how.

Dannythomas wrote:

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Dannythomas wrote:

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 And here are the April 16th womens D1 rankings (previous list rankings in brackets ). Thought it might be interesting to include the singles players results stats and their position on their teams. 

 

Nice jump for Destinee following a solid Run of recent results. Giving herself a shot at an NCAA singles championship qualification if she keeps it going

Angelicas result stats look a little unusual but it often happens when you play for a top 3 college at number 1 there are strong players down the order who get the quick wins and #1 matches are often unfinished. Personally I think the clinch system is a shame. Let them play out all the matches ! 

 

5 (5) Millie Rajecki  ( NC State ) position on team #1 W30 L 7 unfinished 1

28 (29) Vic Allen ( Florida State ) #1   21-7-3

35 (35) Angelica Blake ( Stanford ) #1   7-4-5     

54 (63) Grace Piper ( Southern California ) #3-5   22-8-3

78 (121)   Destinee Martins ( TCU) #1-3    18-10-4 

118 (122)  Sofia Johnson ( Old Dominion ) #1  18-8-1 

 

Doubles

10 ( 10 ) Rajecki/ Zamparda ( NC State ) 

27(30 ) Allen /Bissett ( Florida State ) 

32 (28 )  Adeshina/ Cabezas ( Tennessee ) 

37 (35 ) Reuter / Honey ( Santa Barbara ) 

47 (42 ) Cross / Spink ( Arkansas ) 

50 ( 45) Dudeney / Rowinska ( Florida ) 

60 (56) Piper  /Fry ( Southern California ) 

  

 

 

Team

1 (1) Oklahoma State

2 (2)  Michigan 

3 ( 3) Stanford 

4  ( 5 ) Virginia 

5 (4) UNC 

6 (6)  Georgia 

7 ( 8)  Texas 

8 (7) Pepperdine

9 ( 9) California 

10 (15 ) UCLA

11. Southern California 

12. Texas A&M 

13.  NC State 

14. Florida 

15. Ohio State 

16. Auburn 

17. Tennessee

18 Oklahoma 

19. South Carolina

20. Miami 

 

 

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-- Edited by Dannythomas on Wednesday 3rd of April 2024 12:42:10 PM

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Wow, big win for Holly Staff & partner just now in the SEC Championships defeating the #3 ranked team of Stoiana & Kupres 6-2.

There's a curious situation in this match in that Stoiana, ranked #1 in the rankings by a clear margin, has been demoted to court 2 in singles by the return of Carson Branstine who's been playing on ITFs all year.

In the Southeastern Conference on the men's side we have Hugo Coquelin at Vanderbilt, Toby Samuel, James Story and Connor Thomson at South Caroline, Roan Jones at Alabama, Freddy Blaydes at Georgia, Johannus Monday at Tennessee and Billy Blaydes, Finn Murgett and Will Nolan at Auburn.

Vanderbilt went out in the 2nd round to Florida with Hugo's doubles and singles matches unfinished. Hugo was 1-5 down in the third when the clinch point was won.

11th seed South Carolina defeated the 6th seeded Alabama 4-2. In the 1 position unranked James Story and Toby Samuel defeated the #38 ranked pair from Alabama 6-2 Roan Jones lost his doubles on court 3 1-6 as SC won the doubles point. Into the singles Alabama drew level 2-2. On court 1 Toby Samuels put South Carolina back ahead defeatins #32 ranked opponent 7-5 6-4. James Story got the clinch point when he won on court 2 6-3 in the third set. In the next round South Carolina defeated 3rd seeds #15 Mississippi 4-2. Although they dropped the doubles points Toby on court 1 and James on 2 both won their singles against their #56 and #46 ranked opponents respectively.

2nd seeds #6 Tennessee defeated Florida to progress to the Semis. JoMo winning both his doubles and singles. That sets up a tasty Toby v JoMo match in the Semis as Tennessee play South Carolina.

4th seeded #23 Auburn went down to a disappointing defeat in the QFs to 13th seeds #44 Louisiana State. But that wasn't for the want of trying for the Brits as Will Nolan and Billy Blaydes won their doubles matches on courts 2 & 3 to clinch the doubles point and Finn and Billy won their singles matches on courts 2 and 3.

On the women's side, we have Ola Pitak at Alabama, Holly Staff at Vanderbilt, Indy Spink and Morgan Cross at Arkansas, Alicia Dudeney at Florida and Esther Adeshina at Tennessee.

11th seeds #30 Alabama won their opening round match against unranked Missouri 4-0 with Ola winning her singles on court 3 1 & 0. In the 2nd round Alabama narrowly lost to #19 South Carolina 4-3. Ola's doubles was unfinished at 5-4 and she won her singles on 3 7-6(2) 7-5. It's Ola's 3rd graduate year at Alabama.

#32 Vanderbilt defeated #42 Ole Miss 4-2. Holly Staff recently teamed up with Celia-Belle Mohr won their doubles at the top of the order 6-4 and she played well in her singles on court 5 winning 2 & 2. In the next round Vanderbilt had an expected loss against the 2nd seeds #12 Texas A&M. As previously posted Holly and Celina-Belle got a great win 6-2 in the doubles, although Texas A&M had clinched the doubles point seconds earlier. With Carson Branstine returning to the roster at court 1 for TAM, everyone for Texas A&M shuffled down the order. And it showed as Holly on court 5 was out played by her opponent who had been playing higher up the order all season, losing 6-3 6-3 but not before saving multiple match points.

Esther lost both her doubles and singles matches for Tennessee but they still made it through to the Semis where they will play the top seeds Georgia. I thought Esther and partner Alana Wolfberg would have been more competitive in the doubles.

Alicia Dudeney was down in her doubles on court 1 2-5 and lost her singles 4 & 4 on court 4. But Florida still came through to win and will play Texas A&M in the semis.

Arkansas lost to Louisana State in the 2nd round. Morgan lost her doubles. Indy unsurprisingly lost her singles on court 4 2 & 1. Not unsurprisingly most of her points came on return as she continued to serve underarm for the entire match which were easy for her opponent to put away. I'm a bit confused why you'd put someone limited to serving underarm on at position 4. Morgan at 5 also lost easily 1 & 1.

There was a huge upset in the men's SEC semi-final as 11th seed #24 South Carolina knocked out 2nd seeds Tennessee 4-2. With 1 doubles match going to SC, the attention switched to the other courts. On Court 1 Toby Samuel and James Story were 40-15 up against the serve. Johannus and partner brought it back to deuce point. On the other court it was also deuce point with Tennessee up 6-5. Toby and James won their deciding point to clinch the doubles for South Carolina. Moving on to singles, and JoMo got Tennessee on the board with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Toby, ending Toby's 15 match winning streak - the equal longest in SC programme history. Tennessee got another point to take a 2-1 lead. James Story got SC's first singles point by following up his highest ranked win of the season in the QFs yesterday with his highest career ranked win over #33 Mitsui. He was 1-6 down in the tiebreaker for the first set but came back to take the set 7-6(6). He got a break early in the 2nd which held for the rest of the set to claim the singles point. It is SC's first ever SEC championship final and are the lowest seeded team to have ever contested the final (previously it was 6 in 1991). To take the title however will require an even bigger upset as they will need to beat top seeds #4 Kentucky.

Elsewhere, it was pretty much as expected. Jake Fearnley returned for TCU and got 1 win on court 1 in the first match against Baylor and 1 on court 2 in the second match against Oklahoma.. Jack Pinnington was scratched from the top court after doubles in the first match, which was perhaps precautionary as he played in the second match returning to the top court where he dropped the first set but was leading in the third when the tie was clinched. They will face top seeds Texas in the final.

The women's TCU team went out in the first round, despite the best efforts of Destinee Martins winning her singles match on court 1, 0 & 1.

The ACC women's championships SFs went as expected with the strength in depth of North Carolina too much for NC State. UNC had a ranked player on every singles court and that is with missing their top ranked player. Although UNC had clinched the doubles point, Millie Rajecki's match continued to a finish. Rejecki+ traded games with UNC until the end when UNC won the last 3 games to take a 7-5 win and a clean sweep of the doubles. Why the doubles match continued I am not sure. It might have been because of rankings or it might have been because, I believe, Millie would have achieved another milestone if she had won. I think she is currently on 99 career doubles wins. In the singles, Millie quickly dispatched the first set against reigning NCAA champion Crawley 6-1. Crawley must really hate playing Millie! Unfortunately, despite this the match was left unfinished when UNC clinched the tie 4-0.

In the other semi-final, Florida State lost out to Virginia, who had defeated them only last Sunday. Vic Allen and Millie Bissett got off to a slow start and showed they were the lower ranked team against Virginia's #8 ranked pair. But they slowly came into the match and eventually took it 7-5. But it wasn't enough as Virginia won the other doubles to take the doubles point. In singles, on the top court Vic Allen played Annabelle Xu who had brought Vic's winning run to an end last week. Vic was in no mood to let that happen again as she also won the first set 6-1. This match was also left unfinished as Virginia clinched the tie on the other courts. On Court 4, Millie Bissett was 2-5 (possibly 1-5 down) against the #82 ranked Ziadato but came back to take the first set to a tie break. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to take the tie-break losing it to 4. In the second set she was a break up 2-0 when the tie was clinched.

On the men's side Florida State took a 4-3 decision against Wake Forest with Jamie Connel getting the clinch point with a marathon 7-6(6) 6-7(4) 6-4 win. Luca Pow was unable to compete in singles.