General college chat 2024/25

Lambda · Challenger level

General college chat 2024/25

Lambda · Challenger level

Lambda wrote:
Men: #17 Stanford v #2 TCU (@SMU, Dallas)
I'm not expecting any all British matches in singles as my expectation is that JPJ is likely to be playing at 1, Max at 2 and Lui at 3. Credit to TCU who have put together a brutal non-conference schedule. Stanford won their opening dual of the spring 7-0 last night.

In what was easily the dual of the day TCU swept Stanford aside 7-0 at the neutral SMU venue. In truth, it was not that one-sided with 4 of the singles matches going to a deciding set. This was meant to be played at Stanford, but with their facility being redeveloped this year and the courts they are meant to be playing on this year not yet ready they moved the match to SMU. Why they put it in TCU's back yard I don't know. Surely they could found somewhere else in the Bay area?

JPJ with his partner got TCU off to a winning start with the first victory in doubles at No 2. NCAA Champions Lui and Pedro secured the doubles point shortly after win a win on No 1 leaving Max Basing's doubles set at No 3 unfinished.

In singles there was little to separate TCU and Stanford on all courts in the opening half of the first sets. Lui Maxted (TCU) was given the nod ahead of Vives for the No 2 spot to face Max Basing (Stan). Lui traded games with Max until 4-4 in the first set when he then took command and got TCU on the board with a straight forward 4 & 2 win. TCU up 2-0 was the way it remained for some time, before TCU got another victory at No 6.

On court 1, JPJ was playing Banerjee and PJ was broken first as Banerjee went ahead, *2-3. But that only served to fire PJ up, who then went on to win the next 6 games to take the first set and be a break up in the 2nd and was looking on course to get TCU's 2nd singles point. Banerjee got the break back and games were traded until the last game of the set. The set ended in controversy when at deciding/set point a close call was disputed. Banerjee called Jack's shot out, while Jack claimed it had caught the line, and the umpire agreeing with Banerjee. Mayhem as the point was disputed, the referee called, but nothing ever arises from these and we went to a 3rd set. As it was at the far end away from the camera it was difficult to tell whether it had just caught the outside of the line and TV angles can give a misleading view, evening when I replayed it close up at 25% speed. If I was pushed I would say it was out. But JPJ didn't let it get to him and he went on to win the deciding set and clinch the team win for TCU.

1: #2 Pedro Vives / Lui Maxted [TCU] def Samir Banerjee / Nico Godsick [STAN] 6-4
2: Cooper Woestendick / Jack Pinnington [TCU] def Nathan Barki / Alex Razeghi [STAN] 6-3
3: Duncan Chan / Albert Pedrico Kravtsov [TCU] v Max Basing / Harsh Hemang Parikh [STAN] 5-5 unf
TCU win the doubles point, finish order 2, 1

1: Jack Pinnington [TCU] def #35 Samir Banerjee [STAN] 6-3 5-7 6-4 (finished 3rd)
2: #12 Lui Maxted [TCU] def Max Basing [STAN] 6-4 6-2 (finished 1st)

Lambda · Challenger level

The match of the day today was #6 Arizona at #9 Florida State. Arizona won 6-1. From a British viewpoint #22 Jamie Connel (FSU) gave #5 Colton Smith (ARIZ) a run for his money but ultimately went down 3-6 5-7. Interestingly there was no #9 Craig Corey in the line up for Florida State.

Elsewhere the matches were fairly routine practice matches
Oli Tarvet picked up a routine 0 & 1 win as San Diego defeated Oklahoma State 4-1

Will Jansen got a 2 & 1 win on court 1 for Ohio State as they defeated Xavier 4-0. Anthrop and Aidan Kim were absent from the Buckeyes line-up today.

Auburn men played two matches yesterday to open their spring season against Mercer and North Alabama. Will Nolan and Billy Blaydes continued their successful doubles partnership with 2 wins. Will then made has maiden appearance as Auburn's No 1 with 2 wins 0 & 4 and 5 & 1. Billy also got 2 wins 1 & 2 and 0 & 2, playing at 3 in the first match and 2 in the second match.

Isabelle Lacy made her collegiate debut at court 6 with a 2 & 2 win as Virginia won 7-0 against James Madison in their final warm up match.

Anjali Kotecha (FGC) made her collegiate debut yesterday with a 1 & 5 win on court 3 as Florida Gulf Coast defeated Middle Tennessee State 5-2. She's also currently a set up as FGC take on Minnesota.
(Isabelle and Anjali are our only January starters this year that I know of.)

Jaquelyn Ogunwale (Miami) played some impressive tennis as she won the 1st set 6-1 today. But it all went awry when she was serving for the match at *5-4 in the 2nd. She lost that game and the next 8 to lose 6-1 5-7 0-6. Perhaps with no one on the team to back her up, the pressure of leading the team as a freshman and needing to get a singles point has taken its toll. Miami had only 5 available players today, giving FIU a head start who with a doubles set and singles match awarded to them by default they only needed to win 1 doubles set and 2 singles matches to take the dual, which they duly did defeating Miami 4-0. Miami need Alexa Noel badly.

Savannah Dada-Mascoll - despite the success and history making she made during the fall with her doubles partner, achieving the highest ever doubles ranking and first NCAA doubles qualifiers for App State, that successful partnership has been split up. Nevertheless over yesterday and today, she's got 2 doubles wins with her new partner on court 2 and 2 singles wins leading the team on court 1, 1 & 4 yesterday against Virginia Commonwealth's No 1 and 1 & 1 today against Temple's No 1.

NC State women played another routine match last night which I would not otherwise have commented on (11 of the 12 singles sets were won by bakery products with the Paskauskas sisters both winning 0 & 0, it was that easy) other than it gives a better idea of their singles order for the season with top 700 WTA Laki making her collegiate debut. Laki played on court 1, Kristina played on Court 3 and Gabia played on court 6. Other than being surprised that Zampardo was not higher up the order than 5, this is more like the order I was thinking pre-season. Kristina played doubles with Laki, leaving no room for Jasmine in either singles or doubles. With no one graduating at the end of this year and Victoria Osuigwe joining next year, its hard to see how Jasmine can get into the playing line up in the next couple of years.

Lambda · Challenger level

Two top 15 matches today.

In the men's top 20 match #4 Wake Forest defeated #13 Tennessee 4-0. In the singles, Wake swapped Suresh and Dostanic around at 1 & 2 from Friday's order and Luca moved up from 5 to 4, swapping with his doubles partner. 5 of the 6 singles matches were close with a single break or tie-break winning sets for Wake. The one court that wasn't close was Luca's who won 0 & 1. Luca now has a collegiate record of 28-2 from completed matches in team play.

In the women's top 20 match #14 NC State defeated #10 Pepperdine 5-2. NC State secured the doubles point with Kristina and new partner Laki winning 6-0. Zampardo and Broadfoot defeated Broadus and Yang for the doubles point. Singles was the same order as Friday with Kristina at 3 and Gabia at 6. Kristina lost to Anastasiia Grechkina 3 & 4. After Kristina had finished with the points 2-1, Gabia took to the court (as NC State only have 4 indoor courts they have to stagger the singles). She came very close to getting 4 bagel sets over the weekend but at 6-0 *4-0 she played a string of UEs to lose her only game this weekend. Gabia extends her college record to 13-5. At the top of the order, new recruit Laki defeated #14 Broadus 4 & 4. NC State's glaring problem this season was that they didn't have a No 1 and would need to rely on the strength at the bottom of the order for wins. While still early days and only 1 competitive match, Laki seems to have filled that gap.

Strongbow · All-time great

Thanks for the updates biggrin

Lambda · Challenger level

Looking through the match reports from the colleges, special mention to Talia (Florida) who got the comeback of the day. Playing at 2 against Isabel Oliviera (North Florida) she trailed 0-5. She came back to win the set in a breaker 7-6(8-6) and went on to win the 2nd set 6-4.

Also in this match, which Florida won 5-2, was Alicia Dudeney (Florida) at 1 winning 3 & 2 and Aryana Bartlett (N Florida) at 3 who lost 0 & 1. Alicia and Talia had earlier both won their doubles set. Like fellow state team Miami on Saturday, Florida also only had 5 available players and had to forfeit a singles point. They have 8 on their roster, but 2 of their top 3 by WTN are (assumed) injured, including their No 1 Rachel Gailis who hasn't played singles all season, and not played doubles since the NCAAs. A further player hasn't played since September but has been playing ITFs.