2015 Season Preview: #8 Case Western

Key losses: Eric Klawitter (3 singles, National champion doubles), John Healey (6 singles, 2 doubles), Derek Reinbold (5 singles, 3 doubles)

Key additions: Manfred Barrios, Tytus Chen, Andrew Komarov

Singles Lineup:

1 Singles: Chris “not Krimball” Krimbill. There is no doubt Krimbill is one of the premier players in the country. Obviously his doubles prowess is apparent considering he took home the national championship last season with Klawitter, but his singles goes under the radar a bit. He had an awesome first fall tourney against D1 competition at the Purdue Invite reaching the semis of the A flight. He took down multiple mid-major D1 (Depaul and Cleveland St.) top players to get there so they have to be happy to see his talent translate across divisions. His ITA was a bit disappointing. He really struggled in the second round to Max Hawkins (Chicago) who won’t even play in the lineup. I believe Hawkins was up 5-3 in both sets but Krimbill battled to win 5 and 5. He then lost in three sets to Kevin Chu (Wash U 6). I have to wonder if he was just on tired legs or just was off his game that weekend. I am not at all concerned though as Krimbill will be rock solid for the Spartans.

2 Singles: Will “The Older Brother” Drougas Like Krimbill, Drougas had a similar run of fall tourneys. He also did well at the Purdue Invite, although he played in a lower flight which I think was a smart move by Coach Todd. Drougas didn’t live up to his seed at ITAs and didn’t have any particularly great wins as he fell to Kratky (Wash U #5) in the round of 16. The two losses by your top two players to lower conference opponents have to be concerning on some level, but again I am not worried about Drougas in any way. He is a grinder and guts out a lot of matches. He will need to be big for the Spartans this season if they want to make it back to team nationals.

3 Singles: James “Silent J like Coach Todd” Fojtasek. I have been critical of Fojtasek in the past so I will put my own personal opinion aside on this and judge him on the results. Fojtasek put together a good string of wins at the ITA including a great first round win over Selin (another Chicago freshman) to make it all the way to the round of 16 falling to David Liu (shocker, a Chicago freshman). He played mainly 4 singles last year and had no bad losses, but failed to take down most of the top opponents. When he was moved to 5 singles at the end of the year, he was huge. This would include wins over Emory and a three set war over Kenny Zheng from Carnegie that enabled them to make the Elite 8. That can’t go unnoticed. I think he will struggle moving up the lineup like I have projected, but this is where Case struggled last season as well. Klawitter would always compete at 3, but didn’t have the game to win the big matches. I expect Fojtasek to have similar results. Always be in matches against national caliber teams, but not be able to pull them out.

4 Singles: Josh “Teach Me How To” Dughi I am pretty sure the only reason I gave everyone a nickname was so I could use the one for Dughi. Dughi was a big surprise for me this fall and it is a good sign for the Spartans moving forward. He lost an absolute war three set match to top Wash U freshman Johnny Wu that really could have gone either way. It seems as if Dughi has worked hard on his game to fill some of the voids Case has now. I am not sure he will end up at 4 singles, but for now that is where I have him. If he plays 5 or 6, I see him having a successful year, even against the bigger opponents.

5 Singles: Viswajit “Heavy Balls” Simhadri. I unfortunately didn’t see much of what Simhadri do this fall, but vividly remember him upsetting Noack from Wash U two years ago. Simhadri hits a big ball and can dismantle a lot of players on any given day. Unfortunately he is really streaky so you never know what to expect from him because of it. Four through six singles is where Case has the biggest question marks as these players aren’t battle tested. As I mentioned in my preview, there is no doubt they will be prepared as they are probably the hardest working team in the country (within the rules of course, maybe).

6 Singles: Louis “CK” Stuerke or Tytus “Takes One On the” Chen. I am not really sure who will end up at the last singles spot, but Stuerke has the experience and Chen has the pedigree to give them the nod. Other freshmen like Barrios and Komarov will be in contention as well, but I think the first two should hold it down. Chen may be a freshman that moves his way up the lineup if the results show it and possibly even all the way up to 4, but Coach Todd typically keeps his more experienced players playing above the young guys (i.e Klawitter over Fojtasek last season)

Doubles: Per usual, doubles is a bit tougher to predict. I think it is easy to say that the top two teams will be a combination of Krimbill, Drougas, Fojtasek, and Stuerke. I would expect Krimbill to be at the top spot and likely with Stuerke as they made the finals losing in a third set superbreaker which would put Drougas/Fojtasek together. They pulled the biggest upset of the doubles draw beating Putterman and Bush. While a Case team defeating any team in doubles shouldn’t be an upset, the fact they were down 0-5 to come back to win it 9-8 is awesome. Three doubles, like last season, will be a pretty big drop off. I hope to see some of the freshmen emerge after a few months of tutelage as a viable option. I also just noticed that the initials of Krimbill (CK) and first name of Stuerke make for “Louis CK.” Your welcome!

Schedule

http://athletics.case.edu/sports/mten/2014-15/schedule

The Spartans typically have a pretty tough schedule that is spread out of the year and this is true of this year as well. They will start their first string of difficult matches against Kenyon and Chicago, both will be at their home indoor club which will help them. I absolutely give them the edge over Kenyon as they have fallen quite a bit in my mind and Case has shown they can beat the Lords as they did last year. Chicago will be an extremely interesting match because it will be their first chance to show how good they really are, could be, or per usual overrated. There is no question that Chicago has more talent than Case, but what does remain unanswered is do they have the fight/grit of the Spartans. I am a big proponent of talent always wins in team tennis and it mostly does, but let’s be honest here, this is Chicago we are talking about. I think the Maroons take out Case, but it should be close (either 5-4 or 6-3).

A two week break will be good before Case heads into the first round of Indoors at Gustavus against Hopkins (if our calculations are correct). That will be another close battle and I am not sure I can even pick a winner. If Case wins, I see them losing the next two matches to get 4th, but if they lose, I see them winning the next two matches to get 5th. A jam packed Spring Break sees the Spartans playing in the Pacific Coast doubles tourney, matches against top D2/NAIA schools, Wash U, and then wraps up with the Stag Hen. I honestly can’t remember how the Stag Hen is seeded because I know they messed it all up by putting CMS and PP on opposite sides of the bracket. If my memory serves me correctly, Case was a benefactor of this and CMS and Wash U are both on the other side.

Two dual matches of note after spring break at Stevens and Carnegie Mellon. They should take care of Stevens pretty easily, but I mention it because the Krimbill vs Heinrich match should be great. Also, watch the “Between Two Hoppers” that Stevens did. They must be a fun team to be around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ZqKSwlt20

Anyways, back to Case. They play Carnegie in April in a rematch of the sweet 16 that was epic. I expect it to be just as good this time around with either team having a chance to come out on top. And finally you have the crazy UAA tournament down in Florida at the end of April. This will be extremely interesting and seeding will be important. With the emergence (hopefully) of Chicago, that puts 5 legit teams with a chance to win the whole thing if they have a good weekend. I think there is no doubt that you want to be the 1, 2, or 3 seed as that gives you a little bit of a lesser opponent in the first round. Not much though as Rochester, NYU, and Brandeis are damn good too. Unfortunately for the Spartans, I think they come into this tourney as the 4 or 5 seed so it will be tough. They would need to beat both Chicago and Carnegie in the regular season to hold the three seed behind Wash U and Emory and I think they will split those matches.

So what is my prediction for Case Western on the year? I wish I knew! I have been wrong in the past and could be wrong once again. I think Case will always be a dangerous team that you don’t want to play because they can sweep you in doubles and eek out singles. I think Case’s season will end with a 4th or 5th place finish in the conference, a 2 seed at nationals in whatever region they are places and have the opportunity to knock off a top seed to make it to the Elite 8 once again. Sound familiar? Well it should because that is what happened last season.