Clemson Tiger:
Saw your post in the other thread about the Palmetto State matchup this week. I know Clemson/USC have a pretty good rivalry going in both football and baseball, althought USC has gotten the better of Clemson in both of these sports the last few years.
How's the tennis rivalry between the two schools?
Looks like USC has a pretty highly rated class this year sitting at #2 in the TRN early season rankings. Saw they also landed a high rated top 10 class a few years ago. Clemson, on the other hand, seems to hover around in the top 20-35 in recruiting rankings the last few years.
I was under the impression that Clemson the better tennis program between the two schools, but it seems as though that USC is attracting more of the top talent. What has made USC a more attractive tennis program than Clemson the last few years?
Jack Leggett couldn't beat South Carolina if his life depended on it. On to tennis...
South Carolina has beaten Clemson 5 of the last 6 in tennis. The 3 in a row from 2008-2010 were when Clemson had a really poor team in the early McCuen days, recovering from Kriese's abrupt departure and it was during the height of the Gamecocks Brazilian contingent of Cubas,Machado,Cuellar and Campos, they had salty teams back then and the rivalry was a mismatch. In 2011 Clemson won because SC lost almost everything and had a very poor team that season.
The last two seasons have been two very close 4-3 matches. Last year Wibowo blew a set and a break lead vs Pinheiro that eventually cost Clemson the match 4-3. In 2012 in Clemson, Meza served for the match at 6-5 in the 3rd vs Machado but the Brazilian was able to fight out a win and get the match to SC 4-3. I think overall though Clemson had the better season in last year as the Tigers were one set away from the Sweet 16 while SC got blown out by UNCW in the NCAA 1st round.
The programs right now are basically split even. The reason why SC gets higher recruiting rankings is because Goffi is a more aggressive recruiter of American players. He gets players from New York like Andrew Adams and Sam Swank and from Virginia like O'Keefe and others. Clemson never gets an American player unless they are very regional such as Rigsby, Harrington or Hampton Drake. The last two American players who Clemson pursued and almost got who were not in the region were Wyatt Lippert who went to Ohio State and never played and Patrick Kawka who went to BYU and was ranked a lot of the time, he would have been a good addition. So SC gets higher recruiting rankings because of their American players. Clemson is more reliant on international players like the Madens, Meza and the new Spaniards and more.
Historically Clemson is the better program but SC has had patches of success of their own. Facility wise it's equal. Both have good outdoor facilities and awful indoor ones.
Wednesday will be a tight match. I will talk more about it as we get closer.