It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, the Headmaster. While the Blog Group Chat continues on, with a new addition in NEWRegional, I rightfully took a break off of season previews after churning out 3 in one week back near Christmas. In classic D3AS fashion, I’ll get off the tank and start treeing once again. The Blog is better with D3AS and that’s a fact. (For some reason my MS Word is putting squiggly lines under every one of my contractions, so if this article is a bit more proper than normal that is technology’s fault. Not mine. It’s never my fault.) As you know, the DIII Tennis winter/spring season has begun on both the Men’s and Women’s sides, with major upsets already happening on the Men’s side. Shout-out to Rochester for proving me wrong on twitter, once again. Rochester looks like they’ll be a top 40 and maybe even a top 30 team by the next ranking release, whenever the ITA decides they want to do that. Cue Coach Belletto defending them for whatever weird reason he comes up with. Maybe Belletto is the Billy McFarland to the ITA’s Fyre Festival.
Speaking of Rochester, I’m actually here to be previewing one of my UAA ASouth teams, and the first one to go will be the Carnegie Mellon Tartans. Your boys the Emory Eagles will be previewed later this week (maybe even later today, if I’m feeling like Andy King). D3NEC recently said in a group chat that “CMU would be a legit top 5 team if they had a healthy and caring Rozenvasser.” I would tend to agree with this. But, even without He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Anymore, this is a team that has major potential going into the GOAT’s final season and you shall see why. Enough talk about players that aren’t contributing to the team. CMU is a team that has a lot of upside this year but will really have to break the CMU mold in Coach Mike Belmonte’s second year as full time head coach. Let’s get to the basics.
Overview
I already went through a brief overview in my second introductory paragraph but I will continue on here. I’m feeling the flow. Let me remind you again that this is a new coaching regime for the Tartans under Coach Belmonte, which bodes well for the men’s team. Any situation where the Coach is coaching both Men’s and Women’s is going to be a tough situation. Now, previous Coach Girard can handle the Women’s coaching duties, where he seems to excel. Having a sole head coach makes a big difference. Ask anyone. So, that’s that.
2018 Final Ranking: #10, lost Sweet 16
2017 Final Ranking: #10, missed NCAAs
2016 Final Ranking: #7, lost Sweet 16
2015 Final Ranking: #11, missed NCAAs
2014 Final Ranking: #9, missed NCAAs
As you can see from the above, CMU is fairly consistent when it comes to year over year results. They have established themselves as a perennial top 10 team. Unfortunately, in the world of less Pool C spots than there are Fast and the Furious movies (did anyone see that stupid Rock spin-off by the way?), CMU has not turned that top 10 lyfe into the NCAA lyfe every year. What a shame. But that just means they need to step it up a bit more when it comes to the big matches. Herein lies CMU’s weakness over the years. With a good base this year, a few key returns, and a recruiting class with potential, could this be the year that CMU finally has a breakthrough?
Coach: Mike “Guns” Belmonte, 2nd Season
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Current ITA Ranking: #9 (you go, ITA!)
Current Power Ranking: #8
Twitter Handle: @cmutennis. The gold standard for score updates every year.
Team Hashtag: #breakingplaid
Key Additions
Samuel Gibson (#134, 4 Star), Kunal Barde (#232, 3 Star), Clark Safran (#210, 3 Star)
Key Losses
NONE
Lineup Analysis
#1 Singles, Daniel “GOAT” Levine, Senior, UTR 12.42
This paragraph will be an excerpt from the many conversations about Levine being the best CMU player of all time. I am a staunch believer in Mr. Levine, despite the fact that CMU has not made it very far in the tournament under his leadership. This year is his final year to change that and that should quite clearly be on the top of his agenda. Being an other-worldly player is more than just individual accolades (I won’t name players) and in his senior year, Levine will take this challenge on. Everyone knows Levine is one of the best players in the DIII world right now. He could even make a claim for the best player by the end of the year. CMU has an advantage in virtually every match this year at #1 singles given the fact they have him, plus he’s a damn senior. Despite his loss to his teammate Downing in his regional ITA Finals, there’s no doubt about it – Levine is top dog, and this team will go as far as he can lead them,
#2 Singles, Chaz Downing, Senior, UTR 11.93
Great segue into Mr. Downing’s section there. Chaz surprised many this past fall by taking out his teammate in the finals of the regional, where he went on to take 6th in the ITA Fall Tournament. Downing has come a long way from scrapping away at #5 singles his freshman year. Coach Belmonte has to be psyched that his second in command has shown the grit to be a top player in the nation. Spring is where Downing will need to be lights out at #2 – the expectations have been raised with his win over Levine. If Downing’s career is any indication of how he’ll do, the Tartans will be just fine with Downing at #2.
#3 Singles, Revanth “Ray” Boppana, Junior, UTR 11.86
If there’s a picture in the dictionary next to the word “unheralded” (I really hope that’s a word), the picture would be of Ray Boppana. Ray has put together two incredibly solid seasons manning the #3 singles spot next to Levine and Downing and has multiple wins over top players despite playing lower in the lineup. This past weekend against Oberlin, Boppana actually played at #2 singles over Downing, so it looks like there could even be some flip flop happening if Ray is playing exceptionally well. Imagine having a top 10 player playing at #3 singles. That’s pretty freaking legit. With extremely solid groundstrokes and a reputation of being a hard worker, Boppana is looking at another successful season at the #3 spot to round out CMU’s three-headed monster.
#4 Singles, Robert Levin, Sophomore, UTR 11.23
Levin had a very up and down year at #4 and #5 singles last year, but the hope is that the young man is trending upwards. He started off last year on the struggle bus before ending it out with some key wins at UAAs. The development of Levin will be key for the Tartans. Everyone knows about their top guys, but they were 50/50 toss-ups at best in the middle of the lineup. This is the main reason why they couldn’t break through against the top 5, which has to be their goal this year. Levin will be the start of that trend. Levin gives me Chaz Downing vibes – he just seems like he’ll improve over the year and his career. Let’s hope I’m right.
#5 Singles, Vayum Arora, Senior, UTR 10.33
Someone get the confetti. It’s a welcome back party for the CMU senior Vayum Arora, who came onto the DIII scene three years ago with some solid doubles prowess, a good set of vocal cords, and a desire to win. Not sure what happened last year where Arora was not able to play and was taken off the roster (I have heard, but rumors are not always the best thing), but such is the past. I hope he’s gotten past whatever happened last year and is ready to go. Last time he was in the lineup, he didn’t really have great success at #5 singles, so this is a storyline that will be pretty intriguing as the year goes on. Either way, he is a solid addition to a team that is hurting for consistent talent at the bottom of the lineup. It doesn’t hurt to have a senior who’s been there come back to take that spot.
#6 Singles, Samuel Gibson, Freshman, UTR 11.70
This final spot was a toss-up between Gibson, CMU’s shiny new freshman, and Shekar, a sophomore from last year that played up at #4 in the singles lineup. But, it seems that Shekar is no longer on the team after a decent but not great freshman season. Wonder what happened. Instead, Gibson took his place and notched a win at #6 in his first dual college match. Last year, CMU rotated through literally everyone on the face of the Earth to play at #6 singles. It was an absolute disaster. I am pretty sure they went winless at that spot against top 15 teams, (maybe even top 20). For a team to do that and still end with a top 10 season is a testament to the rest of the players. Shout-out to the Big 3. At this spot, the only way to go is up and that alone gives me hope that this season will bring better things for the Tartans.
Doubles
I never like to do a season preview of doubles, but now I have one DIII match that I can totally steal the doubles lineups off of and that’s pretty awesome. CMU features one of the top teams in the nation in Levine/Downing at #1 and that gives them a good shot to always get a point. Admittedly the CMU #1 team is a bit streaky and they had a few losses last year that made me scratch my head. I expect that to change as the duo of seniors really buckles down in their last year. At #2, they’ve currently got the duo of Boppana/Calzolano, which really excites me. Calzolano can focus on his doubles and pair with a great ground-stroker to potentially make a solid #2 team. But, time will tell. At #3, CMU benefits from the return of Arora as he’ll team up with a very unknown player in Yannick Bloem, who happens to also be a senior from Switzerland! I didn’t even know this guy was on the team. It will be interesting to see what Belmonte does with his lineup – Coach Girard was well known to change his teams mid-season. We will have to see what the lineup looks like under new leadership.
Schedule Analysis
Peep the scheddy right here:
http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/mten/2018-19/schedule
CMU has created a schedule in which they have three main events throughout the year: Indoor Nationals, Spring Break, and UAAs. In between those, they get a few regional battles and their annual rivalry match with Kenyon, which serve up to be nice resume boosters (assuming they win them) at the end of the year. Starting with INDOORS, aka the best tournament of the year outside of NCAAs, CMU will truly start off the year with a massive match. The Bears and Tartans will be in direct competition for one of the lower Pool C spots and there is the possibility they meet 3 times this year to determine who’s going to hold that spot down. The first match is definitely an unknown, so I won’t “preview” the rest of CMU’s indoor matches, but their definition of a successful tournament really depends on this first match. Win, and you get to play Emory/Chicago with nothing to lose. Lose, and you get entered into the gauntlet that is the Indoors back-draw against hungry teams that are ranked lower than you. Sounds like a nightmare.
Next up is Spring Break, where we are switching it up this year. CMU will be traveling to Florida, and kudos to the teams going down there to give us some freaking UAA/NESCAC matches instead of the run-of-the-mill CMS matches that we get every year. With Case Western, Wash U (again), Wesleyan, and Amherst on the schedule, there is literally not a more important slate of matches for CMU on the schedule. For real. Combine that with UAAs and we’re talking a schedule of like 15 ranked matches for the Tartans. Resume will not be an issue if they get enough wins under their belt. I’m looking forward to what CMU can do with a loaded schedule and a lot of talent on their senior led team.
D3AtlanticSouth’s 3 Keys to Success
The GOAT – As I mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, this team is only going to go as far as Levine will take them. It starts at the top and this team will mold into the personality that Levine and Downing set for them. Talent is there. But, will this team come together like the top 5 teams do, or will they falter in random matches that keeps them out of true title contention? That is mainly up to the captains and Levine/Downing will be the focal points. It would help if Levine also solidified his status as the potential best CMU player ever, also. All of their success last year came when they were winning the top 3 matches over the best teams. If they can continue that this year, they have way better support in doubles and the bottom of the lineup. That should scare people.
Belmonte’s Boot Camp – Someone sign these kids up for Classpass in Pittsburgh, because they are going to need some major stamina to get through their brutal schedule this year. With 3 big matches in 3 days at Indoors, 4 big matches in 6 days in the Florida heat at Spring Break, and then another 3 matches in 3 days at UAAs, we’re looking at a gauntlet of matches during the most important parts of their schedules. I’d rather hangout with D3NE for 4 days straight than play Case Western, Wash U, Amherst, and Wesleyan all in the span of one week. Maybe the Tartans should start drinking some water like, stat.
Same Old Mets Tartans – The knock on the Tartans has been that they don’t come up clutch when it matters most. With Sweet 16 ousters and devastating Pool C losses, this is a team that has been through the ringer. With 4 seniors in the starting lineup, a stud at #3 singles, and a general outlook of optimism around the team, this year feels different. But, as with every team, the wheels can come off quicker than a BMW in Compton. There might be a loss or two here and there this year, particularly in one of those Wash U matches, but the Tartans have to remember – it’s a long freaking season. Don’t let the season become a festival that was put together by Ja Rule. Stay focused and stay woke.
Conclusion
I won’t say much for this conclusion. Let me just say that it has been a long while since I’ve seen any of my ASouth teams outside of Atlanta make the Final 4. The things I would do to see two ASouth Final 4 teams this year?
ASouth, OUT.
I was hoping for Ja Rule, but whatever.
Boppana is a sophomore
Always good stuff.