Happy Thursday, boys and girls. It’s time for my ITA recap, and you all know what that means, buckle up for some long-winded rambling and strong blurbing! As always, it’s fall tennis so you have to take everything with a grain of salt, but this is the best of the best when it comes to fall tennis. The best players from the strongest schools in the toughest region of the country. No sane DIII tennis fan would deny that this is the top ITA in the country, so big time congratulations to Boris Sorkin from Tufts and Jerry Jiang/Larry Wang from Bowdoin who will be representing the region at the ITA Oracle Cup (formerly Small College Nationals) next weekend. Before seeing their draws, I am picking both to win it all, partly because I’m a huge homer, but mostly because I really believe they can win! Before looking ahead to that tournament, let’s take a look back at the weekend that was with my 18 from ’18: ITA edition.
1) Respect Comrade Sorkin. It wouldn’t be a Blog article without repeated attempts to congratulate ourselves, so I want to reiterate that I picked Boris to win it all in my preview article. The Russian Rocket easily took down all-name 1st team Hippolyte Bonnet in the 1st round, Roji (projected Wes #3-5) in the 2nd, Morris (projected Midd #4-6) in the 3rd round, #3 Farrell (projected Midd #2) in the quarters, #2 Sean Wei (projected Amherst #1) in the semis and #9-16 Jiang (projected Bowdoin #2) in the Finals. Both the semifinal and the final were three-set matches, and Boris overcame a 6-1 1st set loss to Wei in the semis. That’s two tournaments this fall, and two wins for Sork Daddy. My guy is clearly playing some incredible tennis right now, and should be considered one of the favorites at the ITA Oracle Cup (Small College Nationals) next weekend. Just because he doesn’t have Midd or Bowdoin or Amherst or even Williams after his name, doesn’t mean he can’t hit the trifecta and win his third consecutive tournament of the fall. Congrats, Mr. Sorkin, keep grinding, Из штанов выпрыгивать.
2) Jerry Jiang is a bad man. WOW! Jerry Jiang is your tournament MVP. My dude played 11 matches in fewer than 60 hours and went 10-1 on the weekend. Early straight-set wins over Wernink (projected Bates #1-3) and Cauneac (projected MIT #2), and then the sledding got tougher, but Jerry was more than up for the challenge. The Polar Bear senior won three-set battles over Ma (projected Amherst #1-2) and Kam (projected Williams #1-3) before eventually falling 6-3 in the 3rd to Sorkin in the finals. Oh yeah, AND HE ALSO WON THE DOUBLES DRAW, playing with a new partner for the first time in three years who just happens to have zero lineup experience, beating both of Middlebury’s top two teams along the way! Hopefully we got a nice picture of player and coach smiling away. Jerry has already had a very impressive career, but if he goes out playing successful #2 singles against the NESCAC we might well see Bowdoin make yet another Final Four. Then again…
3) The rest of Bowdoin looks vulnerable for the first time since Iggy Azalea was relevant. While Jerry was the tournament MVP, during their recenty dynasty, the Polar Bear’s trademark has been their depth. In this tournament, Zhao lost in the 1st round to Quijano (projected Bates #1-2), Rosovsky lost in straight sets in the first round to Roji (projected Wes #3-5), Patel lost to Grant (projected Tufts #2-6) in straight sets in the 1st round Wang lost easily to Farrell in the 2nd round, #9-16 Oscar Yang managed to hold his seed, but played a couple close matches against guys who will be no more than bottom of the lineup for Williams or Brandeis. Now, it was Yang’s 1st tournament, and he also managed to win eight games from Wei in the Sweet-16. I’m not saying this team won’t make NCAAs or even finish top-3 in the conference, but the bottom of the lineup might not be a strength for the first time about 1/2 a decade.
4) Hobarts and Hamlines of the NE be damned, the favorites came to play! Seven of the top eight singles seeds made the quarterfinals and the odd man out was a #9-16 seed. Without doing any research I would bet AVZ’s Indiana farm (which operates on Central time) that hasn’t happened at any point in the past decade. Just because a player from Tufts won the ITA, don’t think for a second he should be placed on the same level of “i don’t believe what I just saw” as Hamline getting the ITA win. In addition, the doubles semis were made up of the #2, #3, #4 and #5-8 teams, and the finals were the top teams from Midd and Bowdoin.
5) Tie breakers at 7-7 and superbreakers were employed due to weather concerns at the start of the weekend. The 1st round matches were not all that exciting. Only five split sets? Maybe this is just a subsection of the last blurb, but it did seem like there was a real lack thrilling 1st round matches. I’ve even heard rumors that no-ad scoring was used, which is a travesty. Granted, I’m not the one suffering through the 16 hour day, but still.
6) Might MIT be a top-20 team again?! The top of their lineup had a great weekend! Barr was the #7 seed, but I had him on upset alert and he proved me wrong. He beat Biswas (Tufts #2-5), Guo (Midd #5-7), and Altmeyer (Colby #1), before falling to Sean Wei in the quarters. The bigger story was Alex Cauneac, who took down Kaynor (Trinity’s top recruit) and had the upset of the tournament when he beat #4 Finkelman (projected Wes #1) in the 2nd round, rallying from a set down. We’ve seen Alex be a top-10 player in the region for most of his sophomore year, and he might be BACK after what we can just say was his junior year “abroad.” We know MIT has all the necessary talent, and any MIT believer has been badly burnt in the past…BUT if Barr and Cauneac are back to producing big time wins, it’s hard not to become both interested and infatuated.
7) How does Williams get anything done given the adorable dogs around the courts? I know, I know, this is more in D3NEWomen’s territory, but seriously look at this lil nugget. The Williams women even have the furball in their team roster picture. The Blog group chat has spent many a time discussing how amazing dogs are, and this pup is no exception. Even the Ephs twitter picture is/has been a dog for years now.
8) Wesleyan has a lot of work to do in the offseason, but let’s not go full panic mode just yet. I’m not really worried about #Fink, see blurb #6,True, Anker didn’t beat any starters before falling to Farrell, but he pushed him to a 3rd, and Roji did the same thing to Sorkin. Lillenthal losing to Foulkes was certainly a disappointment, but not the end of the world. In the dubs, all three teams won at least a round, with two teams losing to the top two seeded teams in the 2nd round, and the third losing to the finalist in the quarterfinals. Again, not results you’re going to slap up on the minifridge in Coach Fried’s office, but it could be worse. That being said, these results fit more in the line of the teams fighting for NESCAC relevancy rather than supremacy…
9) I really don’t know who has the leg up in what is likely the battle for the final NESCAC playoff spot. My head says Tufts, but my head said that each of the past two years, and Bates made it over the Bos both times. Both teams graduated their top players, leaving this year very up in the air. I’ve already talked about how good I think Sorkin is/can be, but the rest of the Jumbo lineup remains in flux. Gorelik lost to Kam 1st round, Grant got a solid win over Patel (projected Bowdoin #4-5), but got annihilated by Ma, and Biswas lost to Barr. Tough draws, and such it was tough to get a read on any Jumbo outside of Boris. As for Bates, Jacobs pushed Xiao to a super, Davis got beaten badly by Anker, Wernink won a round before falling to Jiang, and Q won a round before losing to Kam in a super. These are perfectly solid results, but nothing to write home about, especially considering both Bates doubles teams lost in the 1st round. I’m hoping we’ll get a better sense of both team’s depth at the upcoming NE fall tournaments.
10) Amherst will be a tough matchup for the top of the NESCAC this year. Wei and Ma are really really really good. Even if it looked like Wei wasn’t the most focused for points of the weekend, both guys made deep runs, and won’t be underdogs against any team they play this spring, yes even Cuba and Farrell from Midd. In fact, other than Midd/Bowdoin, with whom they are just about even, Amherst should probably be favored at 1/2 against any team in the conference. Both Midd and especially Bowdoin’s strengths are the tops of their lineups, which means Amherst could really be trouble. Given the look of the rest of their lineup with some combo of Bessette (lost 10-8 in a super to Brandeis’ likely #1-3), Foulkes (beat Lillenthal Wes’ projected 2-3 & lost in a super to Brandeis’ projected #2-4), Fung (lost to seeded Taylor in a super), and a veritable litter of younger guys, I think Amherst is going to be just fine this year.
11) Alex Taylor had a really solid weekend, and is the reason Jayson Fung did not. After I thought he was prime for an upset, A-Tay not only came back to beat Fung after dropping the first set 6-1, but also made the semis of the doubles draw with a freshman, knocking off the top-seeded duo of Bessette and, you guessed it, Fung, in the quarterfinals. Taylor played #2 dubs last year and was out of the singles lineup, after playing #1 dubs and #5 singles as a freshman. If he is able to play consistently high in the doubles lineup for a 3rd straight year AND earn some consistent points in the singles lineup, it shores up an Eph lineup riddled with holes after losing a big class.
12) Despite Midd not bringing home any hardware, the Panthers rebounded nicely from their mostly disappointing performance at the Middlebury Invitational. Cuba and Farrell absolutely breezed through Day 1, and made the quarters before falling. However, both won a set in their QF matchups (against Kam and Sorkin respectively). Eazor also made it to the round of 16 with ease, before pushing Ma to a 3rd set. Stanley Morris had two good wins over Indrakanti and Tzeng before losing to Sorkin. Even Guo and Xiao had solid 1st round wins and pushed top seeds to supers (Barr and Wei respectively). In dubs, Farrell and Martin made the quarters before losing to the eventual champs, and Cuba/Eazor made the finals. Even Midd’s 3rd team won two rounds and beat a seeded Amherst team. No titles, but Midd is still CLEARLY the team to beat in the NE.
13) Brandeis continues to give the impression that they are a team on the rise. NewRegional covered the Judges, along with Colby and Babson in his ITA Regional Recap but I want to give Adam Tzeng and Nikhil Das some love here too. Tzeng and Kogan were seeded #2 overall, which is incredibly high given we’re not even sure they are the Judges’ best team. Aizenberg and Coramutla set the world on fire for most of last year, and having those two at #1 and #2 with a more experienced team like Ng/Chen at #3 gives Deis something they havent had in a really long time, a chance to win all three doubles spots against the conference’s elite. I have yet to believe they will be as strong towards the top of the singles lineup, but if they are, I have no problem with Brandeis fans believing they will be competing for an NCAA Pool-C berth.
14) There was a play-in singles match, and it was wildly entertaining! There have been play-in doubles matches before, but I don’t remember seeing a play-in singles match. Junior Aidan Roach (Curry) took down senior Blake Norton (Nichols) by a roller coaster of a 0-6, 6-1, 11-9 score. Unfortunately Roach must’ve been a little drained from his emotional play-in win as he fell to Wang (Bowdoin) 0&0 shortly thereafter. Either way, I’m all for play-in matches if it allows more things like this. Let’s be honest, you all watch the two 16 seeds battle it out on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Round of 64. It’s a good primer for what’s to come.
15) Did you all know that Cam’ron went to Amehrst? K-Ma, D-Rup, J-Fung, Foulkes, Turchet, Bessette, and we gon Wei the Sean tonight!
16) I know NewRegional is high on Scott Altmeyer, but I was not overly impressed with Colby. What should be a solid doubles team (and was seeded #5-8) got blown out by Babson’s top team in the first round 8-2, and then the Babson team went and got smoked 8-1 in the 2nd round. Yes, Scotty held his seed, and even played Tyler Barr to 4&3, and yes Pathi had a rough draw with Kevin Ma in the 1st round, but those results are not going to be good enough if Colby is looking to compete for the final spot at NESCACs this year.
17) Where are the vaunted freshmen? Yes, Yang and Anker held seed and made the round of 16, and both pushed their respective seeds, but neither was outstanding. #9-16 Noah Lillenthal lost in the 1st round to fellow freshman Foulkes (Amherst), but he lost to Nikhil Das in the 2nd round in a super breaker. Stanley Morris (Midd) also knocked off a seed, taking down #9-16 Deepak Indrakanti in the 1st round and yet another freshman in Adam Tzeng in the 2nd round. Tzeng and Frelinghuysen did make the opposite sides of the doubles semifinals, but you only get 1/2 credit for doubles. There is still plenty of time for these young to make a more lasting impression starting with…
18) We don’t have to wait all that long before seeing most of these top guys in action again! Bates hosts the Wallach this weekend with many of the usual suspects (Bowdoin, Amherst, Tufts, Brandeis, Skidmore, Colby and Trinity) in attendance. In addition, the MIT Invitational is now being played at Tufts & Brandeis the following week, and will include Middlebury, Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Tufts, Brandeis, (although it’s still listed as the MIT Invite on their schedule), and MIT. The Wallach is always solid, but the now annual Mass Invite is BUMPIN! The top-8 teams in the region and a three-day draw should provide some fireworks and possibly give us a better sense of the NE hierarchy than ITAs did. One thing to note, because the ITA Oracle Cup (Small College Nationals) is the same weekend, we won’t get any Sorkin or Jiang/Wang at that tournament.