Alright Central fans, it is about that time of year. Being that this is my first article of the season, I decided to go away from the boring preview and make some bold predictions heading into this ITA season. Since the draw doesn’t come out until the night before the tournament, it is almost impossible to pick who will win what match because all the match-ups are key. This particular article will only be about the St. Louis ITA because the Gustavus draw is a week later. The St. Louis ITA is arguably the toughest ITA in the country. Yes I may be biased, but I am not saying that this field is the most talented because it isn’t. What I am saying is the tournament is absolutely brutal and the survival of the fittest. A 128 man draw from 30+ teams will do that not to mention any doubles matches the key players will likely be in. Add in relatively hot Midwestern temperatures with some humidity and you can guarantee a key player will drop out in the middle rounds. So here are my bold predictions for this year!
- No one outside of Chicago, Wash U, or Chris Krimbill will make it to the quarterfinals. This claim is a testament at how good and how deep both Wash U and Chicago are coming into the season. Last year, there were two players outside of this group that made it to the quarters (Barshevich from Earlham and Drougas from Oberlin) and even Krimbill fell early. That meant no player from Case, Kenyon, Depauw, or Denison made it to Sunday for singles which is a bit crazy. In my mind there is really only one player that could break up this bold prediction and that is Sam Geier of Kenyon. He won this tournament 2 years ago and didn’t play in it last year due to being overseas. Geier will likely be a top 5 seed which gives him a good draw at least heading into the quarters. However, I predict he will run into a tough middle of the lineup guy from Wash U or Chicago and fall before he gets there. So much will depend on who that 4th round match is against so Geier could easily get to the quarters, but I think he falls there. Brandon Metzler from Kzoo deserves a mention, but he doesn’t have the fitness to make it all the way through the quarterfinals. The sad part of this claim is the realization that Kenyon, Denison, Depauw, and Case aren’t in the same category as Chicago and Wash U anymore. Can we get a rule where we can get Heerboth back for a 5th year? Or Will Drougas?!? Please?!?
- Chris Krimbill and Nick Chua will not win the whole thing. This is probably my boldest claim I can make because they will likely be the top two seeds at the tourney. How can I expect neither of these guys to win? Well the format of the weekend is where they get hurt the most. Because Krimbill is such a great doubles player and will be the top seed there as well (with Stuerke), he will have played 4 matches on Friday and 4 matches on Saturday heading into Sunday against the best competition. That’s an insane amount of tennis. Chua is no different. He will run through his first few matches in doubles and continue to play deep into the doubles draw. The best thing that happened to him last year was his doubles partner had to withdrawal taking him out as well. That allowed him to rest up and continue his run. If either of them were to fall in the early rounds of the doubles, then they become overwhelming favorites to make the finals.
- First round upsets will happen to guys ranked #8-32. Last year the D3 tennis world was rocked by John Carswell falling in the first round to little known Peter Harris from Baldwin Wallace. Kudos to Harris for following that win up with two more wins along the way including another seed to show it wasn’t a fluke. This year I just don’t see any top seeds falling early. Unless someone gets absolutely screwed over and unseeded, then I expect the upsets to occur at the lower seeds. Other than Carswell (the 3 seed), the 18th, 30th, and 32nd player fell in the first round. I see this trend happening again. The seeding committee likes to give recognition to players from the lesser known teams with seeds. I mean how can you seed the #7 player from Wash U over the #1 player from Trine (sorry!)? While the coaches on the committee probably think the #7 player is better, playing #1 for your team is always going to take precedent when it comes to seedings and rankings. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is. So what that sets up is a lot of the unseeded players from Wash U, Chicago, Case, and Kenyon playing the top players from the other teams and beating them. In my mind, they aren’t upsets, but when you look at the seeds, they will be. A few examples of guys who are probably coming in with a higher seed than they should be are Paik from Oberlin, Bera from Wooster, and Stadnyk from Earlham. All three of these guys are great players who had solid seasons last year and I am a huge fan of Bera and Paik, but they aren’t quite at the level of the back half of Wash U and Chicago’s lineup.
- Expect a grinder/baseline player to win the tournament. Ah now we are getting into my prediction to who can win the whole thing. I have already written off Chua and Krimbill, so who does that leave? Because this tournament is an absolute marathon, many times it comes down to style of play and fitness. There are only a few big hitters in the mix to win it, but that style of play is most difficult to sustain over 7 matches. Those players will run up against a grinder who will cause them fits by getting a lot of balls back in the court and forcing them to hit even bigger. Just take a look at last year’s semi finals. Three of the four were grind it out baseline players (Kratky, Wu, and Liu) with the sole big hitter Chua coming out victorious. Clearly this shows that a big hitter can win it (also see Geier the previous year), but I want someone who can sustain a consistent game with my prediction for a winner. The baseline grinder who can avoid early round three set victories is going to be the one to beat. Last year Johnny Wu had an early round marathon against another gutsy consistent player from Case, Josh Dughi, and I think that hurt his stock in the semis. Kratky also had a three set match in the quarters against teammate Jeremy Bush and that hurt him in the finals. David Liu had a crazy match against Mikey Drougas from Oberlin leaving him with little left in his legs. So with that, I am picking one of three guys with a consistent game, no huge weapons, and can run for days on days. The three candidates are Sven Kranz from Chicago, Johnny Wu from Wash U, and Tyler Kratky from Wash U. Kranz has an affinity for three sets matches (4 this past weekend) which will hurt him. Kratky had cramping issues last spring which doesn’t bode well so that leaves me Johnny Wu for the win! Now that is a bold prediction! Jeremy Bush also has got to be in consideration.
- Freshmen will shine once again. This one is always tough because who knows if the freshman commits actually showed up on campus, are as good as their star ranking, or decided that the social scene is more important than tennis. Either way, there are some freshman in the field that are the ones to watch. Most of which are from Chicago which isn’t terribly shocking. Five star recruit Charles Pei should be a focal point for this tournament. One interesting thing of note on Pei is that in the warm up tourney this past weekend, Coach Tee had him in the C flight behind Chua (A flight) as well as Kranz and Leung (B flight). So the big question is whether or not that is a move to give the freshman some confidence or if he will be playing #4 for the season. I can’t say I have ever seen him play, but it may take him some time to transition to the college game. Chua came in seeded behind Leung and we all know how he finished last year. Joining Pei in the C flight was Max Liu. Not to be confused with teammate David Liu, Max lost early in the tournament to the flight winner in three sets. That same winner beat Pei 1 and 2 in the final so just something interesting to consider. Johnathan Li also is a Chicago freshman to watch. Two Wash U freshman should be tough opponents in Konrad Kozlowski and Rada Visnubhotla. Both come in as highly rated four star recruits and featured in the one Wash U match this fall winning easily. I think they will be mid range seeds that no one wants to see and each could make a big impact in doubles as well. Kozlowski was paired with Bush at the top spot and Rada is a state champion doubles player from hot bed Carmel High School in Indiana. Outside of the big two teams, only Nicholas Paolucci of Kenyon catches my eye as someone to pay attention to. He won the B flight of a weak field at the Kenyon Invite, but did so convincingly with wins over teammates Peter Hazlett and fellow freshman Max Smith. One potential unknown is Dane Paulsen. According to tennisrecruiting.net, he committed to Wheaton, but their website has yet to be updated so he is a big question mark. Wheaton has had All-Americans in the past and if he is actually on the roster, could make some noise based off his junior career as of late.
- Sleeper picks this year are tough to find. With all that has been said already, it’s difficult to find a sleeper pick in the field. There are two that come to my mind that likely will be seeded, but who knows which game they will bring. The first is John Carswell. Wait….John Carswell as a sleeper? He will be seeded in the top 8 no doubt, but no one is really pegging him to win it. All will depend on which John Carswell shows up, the one from freshman year that was virtually unbeatable, or the one from last year that was a below average #1 all season. The second sleeper that I really can’t comment on because he hasn’t played for a year is James Fojtasek from Case. Fojtasek sat out all last season due to injury, but is slated to play this ITA. I have no idea where his game will be at, but he is a fighter and could factor in some late round upsets. Luke Tsai had a fantastic year last year and also upset the 2 seed Wade Heerboth (sorry to remind you Wade) last fall so he could be under the radar. That’s really all I have to choose from. Depending on seeding, Jason Haugen and Shawn Berman from Wash U are ones to watch.
There you have it folks. These are just a few bold predictions for the St. Louis ITA this weekend. Will all of these things happen? No chance, but they aren’t crazy points and give us something to think about. It still is a bit crazy to me that I barely mentioned Kenyon and Depauw and Denison are no where to be found, but that’s the reality of the Central region this year. I will give them a little love and say they will be a factor in the doubles draw which is impossible to predict. To all the coaches out there, first one to send me the draw to d3centraltennis@gmail.com will get an exclusive interview with yours truly about your program. What better way to promote your program?!? Good luck to all the players this weekend and fingers crossed for no rain on Friday as that makes the tourney a mess!