2013 ITA National Indoors Tournament - Seattle, WA (Feb 15-18)

[B1G Tennis]

Quiroz survived one match point at 4-5. He's going to have to serve again at 5-6 in a second here.

[mikej]

Originally Posted by Vicious Vik

whats the sabre

uva's retro athletics message board

[mikej]

uncharacteristic few points from frank - break pt

edit: saved then another error for bp #2

edit2: saved again, sloppy miss from the quirozmeister

[B1G Tennis]

Actually, Quiron now has a break point ay 5-5. I thought it was 40-15 when it was 30-30.

[mikej]

god, that's as close as frank will ever come to giving away a game and quiroz said "f that, i can make way more errors than you silly fool, watch me spray the ball all over the place"

i've seen better strategies

[mikej]

about to be over 0-30 i think - and now 0-40

[mikej]

quiroz broken at love after wandering to the net aimlessly four times

he clearly decided he didn't want to go to a 3rd with frank, or he forgot how to play tennis

[Automator]

Originally Posted by mikej

haha automator writes "quiroz's relationship with the net deepens" over on the sabre - very true the last game and a half

Glad that one got a laugh.

[mikej]

this tourney was too predictable - if only stanford had been there to shake things up and make a deep run - i will hope for their presence in illinois in may

[ClarkC]

Pretty impressive play from USC and Ohio State at this tournament. I don't know what to make of Ohio State. They looked like the #2 in the country by a whisker at this tournament, but got upset by Texas A&M a week ago. Ille Van Engelen is not ready to play yet, and they had a January admit from overseas who was not cleared in time to play and was listed as #5. They will be a team to watch in the spring.

USC graduates Steve Johnson and Daniel Nguyen, and still dominates Texas A&M and Kentucky, fights off the challenge from UCLA, makes it to the final, and gives UVa a great match.

The entire singles lineups at USC and UCLA will be back next year. Only Brigham in doubles will graduate from UCLA, and no doubles grads from USC. I don't see Virginia as super-dominant this year or next. College tennis is too deep in competition for real dominance these days.

Congrats to UVa for a national indoor title. Outdoor season will be interesting.

[TopDawg]

That doubles point was HUGE for Virginia. The remaining match at 4 was still up for grabs but that would have been a ton of pressure on Styslinger if it came down to him against the guy who clinched the NCAAs a year ago. It ought to be an interesting tournament this May.

[treeman10]

Gotta agree with ClarkC, while final didn't have drama of semis it was closer than I thought, with that line-up UVA carries. It is interesting that a young USC could get to the finals, not playing indoors any other time of the year. NCAAs could be a tight battle. Ya Topdawg, had Quiroz pulled it off for USC, it would have been drama, doubles point was huge.

[TopDawg]

Despite the scoreboard slowness at both venues I will have to say the Live HD Streaming Video was spectacular and was crystal clear on every court except for a tad blurred on 1 and 4.

Will be interesting to see what we get come May at Illinois. Illinois is the first site that's hosted that hasn't already had Live Video and point by point scoring in place in quite a while so it makes you wonder what we'll see and hear if anything.

[B1G Tennis]

Nice win for Virginia. This week confirms my suspicion that they are going to be almost untouchable at 2 & 3. That pretty much forces teams to win of 4 of 5 on the rest of a stacked lineup. OSU and USC showed that it was possible, but couldn't come through.

USC looked pretty good this week. Quiroz and Gomez look better than I remember. Johnson is a great #6. They are still a title contender, but they need Sarmiento be a force at #1. Going 0-3 against Rossi, Novikov, and Jenkins doesn't cut it.

I think UCLA is probably second best. It's tough to lose a close match to USC, but they were in six of the seven points, with the seventh being a really streaky player.

There is a bit of a dropoff to OSU at 4. Blaz Rola was the best player in Washington this week, and you have to think that he is the top #1 in America (the only player at any slot who might be better is Domijan). There's no shame in a 7-5 third set loss to Domijan for Kobelt. If Van Engelen can come in and get them wins at 5, they become the nation's fourth elite team.

Beyond that is anyone's guess. Duke is probably fifth, but there has been way too much inconsistency. Georgia showed some signs of life without Singh. Rossi had a great weekend for a solid Kentucky team. Pepperdine was really disappointing, IMO. TAMU was awful, but Vinsant and Withrow may have been injured. Really, though, these teams (with the possible exception of Duke) proably have a ceiling of the Semis.

[mikej]

Originally Posted by B1G Tennis

Nice win for Virginia. This week confirms my suspicion that they are going to be almost untouchable at 2 & 3. That pretty much forces teams to win of 4 of 5 on the rest of a stacked lineup. OSU and USC showed that it was possible, but couldn't come through.

USC looked pretty good this week. Quiroz and Gomez look better than I remember. Johnson is a great #6. They are still a title contender, but they need Sarmiento be a force at #1. Going 0-3 against Rossi, Novikov, and Jenkins doesn't cut it.

I think UCLA is probably second best. It's tough to lose a close match to USC, but they were in six of the seven points, with the seventh being a really streaky player.

There is a bit of a dropoff to OSU at 4. Blaz Rola was the best player in Washington this week, and you have to think that he is the top #1 in America (the only player at any slot who might be better is Domijan). There's no shame in a 7-5 third set loss to Domijan for Kobelt. If Van Engelen can come in and get them wins at 5, they become the nation's fourth elite team.

Beyond that is anyone's guess. Duke is probably fifth, but there has been way too much inconsistency. Georgia showed some signs of life without Singh. Rossi had a great weekend for a solid Kentucky team. Pepperdine was really disappointing, IMO. TAMU was awful, but Vinsant and Withrow may have been injured. Really, though, these teams (with the possible exception of Duke) proably have a ceiling of the Semis.

as a duke fan, no one out there scares me except UVA this year

i'll take duke vs usc or ucla any day - they've had plenty of wins against those two schools the past couple years - 2 against usc, and 1 against ucla - and i think they'll get another if that's their draw a couple months from now

[mikej]

and i don't buy the "dropoff" to OSU at 4

no one has made a claim of being #2 yet in my mind, we'll see how the season and draw shakes out

[treeman10]

Originally Posted by TopDawg

Despite the scoreboard slowness at both venues I will have to say the Live HD Streaming Video was spectacular and was crystal clear on every court except for a tad blurred on 1 and 4.

Will be interesting to see what we get come May at Illinois. Illinois is the first site that's hosted that hasn't already had Live Video and point by point scoring in place in quite a while so it makes you wonder what we'll see and hear if anything.

I've been singing the praises of the video all week with hopes someone in Illinois is listening. We had it linked to the 65" flat screen and it was awesome. Would love to watch the NCAAs that way as well, but I think that is too much to hope for. We may have to give out cell phones #s so we can text each other updates, like morse code days.

[Clemson_tennis]

There is no dropoff to 4 with Ohio state they are right there with the LA schools. They have the strongest top 2 in the nation and Smith playing very well. Weakness at 3 and 6. I would try Christ at 6.

USC is impressive yet again. The improvement of Gonez and Quiroz was huge. Also looks like De Vroome is the real deal. I think USC should play Gomez at 1 going forward he has a bigger game that can challenge the top guys.

UCLA needs to be more consistent. Novikov needs to bring it more often at 1 and Puger has been slightly disappointing at 3. Thompson should be great at 5 but had shown signs of weakness.

Virginia showed done vulnerability this weekend. They showed some cracks. Styslinger and R.Shane were expected to absolutely roll at 4 and 5. But they showed they are beatable. Domijan should not lose at 2 all year, only chance is if he faces Kobelt again.
Frank isn't as dominant this year as he was last year but he still won't lose much. Still the team to beat bit not a title shoo in.

Both UVA and Ohio State are traditionally indoor teams while the LA teams thrive more outdoor. We will see if that trend continues this year.

Outside of the top 4. Really only Duke can break the set semifinals. Pepperdine has a great top 4 but weak in doubles and 5 and 6. I think Kentucky with Lai at 6 could be a dangerous team. Texas A&M was a big letdown in this tournament after a big win. Oklahoma was a bit disappointing as well.

[tennishmang]

Agreed. Duke is the scariest team outside of the "big 4" this year and stands the best shot at a semifinal birth at ncaas. when new rankings come out, we'll likely see 1 uva 2 usc 3 ucla 4 osu again and i don't think that will change the rest of the season.

uva will have battles with duke but still think they won't lose until may, same goes for ohio state with matches against pepp and kentucky.

ucla and usc may flip flop a little depending on who beats who each time. they'll play at least 3 more times this year before ncaas. don't see osu jumping either of the LA schools with that a&m loss earlier.

[Costagirl]

Originally Posted by DaveKB

I am rare poster here, but follow college tennis and UVA tennis closely. UVA will finally win the NCAA's as well. USC has owned us for 4 years, although we played them close a couple of times, but with Steve Johnson and Daniel Nguyen gone, USC is not nearly as good. I think only OSU has any chance to beat us and Rola and Kobelt have to win for that to happen.

We have four legit top ten players in Domijan currently tied for #2, Jenkins #4, Styslinger #7 and Mitchell Frank (#2 after end of 2011 season) who is now healthy after a knee injury prevented him from playing in the fall season. Freshman Ryan Shane (Justin's younger brother) is ranked #22.

We have three different outdoor All American and/or National indoor individual title winners in Domijan, Frank, and Jenkins. No other top 10 team has even one such player. Ryan Shane will likely play 5 and Justin Shane 6. Last year's #6 Julen Uriguen probably will be listed at 7 or 8 along with freshman Harrison Richmond.

I seriously doubt any college team has ever had 4 top 10 players on one team. Does anyone know if this is true? I know it has not happened in the last ten years.

I predict four UVA wins each by 4-0 scores, but we conceivably could lose a doubles point, even though we do have three doubles teams ranked in the top 10.

Anyone care to dispute this bold prediction?

http://www.costa-del-tennis.com/coll...ins-interview/