Finally! What a week it’s been in the real life of D3RegionalNEC. Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but hopefully it was worth the wait. I feel like I’ve really been hyping this post up on Twitter, so it would be pretty bad if I can’t deliver. Luckily we’ve got some good stories to discuss!
Before I start, a PSA. With two years of Blogging under my belt, I’ve decided that this year I’m just going to write about what I want. I still have a loose list of teams that I am in charge of covering, but gone are the days of me writing some boring paragraph about Vassar vs Skidmore (not to pick on the Brewers or Thoroughbreds…) where I just say some fluff like, “Skidmore is probably going to win. The #1 singles match could be interesting. Doubles will be key!” That’s boring to write, and I bet it’s boring to read. So instead, I’ll just write about interesting things in the world of D3 Tennis, with a focus on the regionally ranked Northeast and Central teams. Realistically, I’ll probably throw in some more random stuff like Snack of the Week or my thoughts on other stuff, but the moral of the story is this: If you want to get written about, do something interesting!
Okay, with that out of the way, I’m thrilled to have plenty of interesting things to talk about. Formatting be damned, I’m going ASouth Stream of Consciousness tonight. Ready? Go!
HOBART! HOBART! HOBART! How awesome is it that the only question about where I was going to start this post was Hobart or Hamline? We’ll get to the latter in a minute, but let’s talk about Alan Dubrovsky and the Statesmen for a minute. This team has gotten steadily better for about five years now, thanks in large part to Dubrovsky and the current senior class. Dubrovsky came in as a high two-star—solid, but not amazing—and went out to become the Liberty League Rookie of the Year, in a class that included RPI’s #6 ranked two four-stars and two three-stars as well as JT Wynne from Skidmore. He built on that last year, putting together another strong year even as Hobart took a little step back. And as a junior now, he gets out to an awesome start, already racking up a 10-1 record this fall (loss to Kevin Ma, Amherst). It’s no surprise that he took on Sebastian Castillo-Sanchez in the final, and it’s even less of a surprise that the two had an absolute battle (thanks RPI for Periscoping the match!). Both of them deserved to win, being two of the top three players in the region, but it was cool to see Dubrovsky become Hobart’s first All-American since 1995 in a tournament hosted on campus. One note that I alluded to on Twitter last weekend: Dubrovsky and Castillo-Sanchez, both just juniors, have already played SIX times! And while it feels like a rivalry because both are so solid, it’s been pretty one-sided so far, with Dubrovsky leading 5-0 with one unfinished match where SCS was up a set last year.
While we’re talking Statesmen, let’s also give it up for another two-star, Walker Anderson, for joining with Dubrovsky to win the doubles title! I LOVE two-star All-Americans. While Dubrovsky was probably one of the three favorites to win the singles, I didn’t give these two much chance of coming away with the title. Credit to them for surprising me and locking down the ITA double for the hosts!
Jake Trondson is my new favorite player. Concordia College, Moorhead. St. Olaf. These are a couple of the schools that Trondson lost to last year (though I will say, looking at his record from last season, he was still pretty solid overall.) Trondson was someone I had never heard of before this weekend. And I blog about mid-tier D3 tennis teams! The point is, Trondson hadn’t done anything to really distinguish himself in the world of D3 Tennis. So what did he do about that? He spent the entire summer GRINDING, playing in tournaments and moving his UTR from a 10.92 on May 21st to an 11.97 on September 24. A full point in four months! I’m not sure everyone appreciates how insane that is. I love all of this not just because I always root for the guys from the small schools, but because it’s just a great example of putting in the hard work and getting result. Tennis isn’t a meritocracy, but I sure do love when it seems like it.
Looking more specifically at his run this past weekend, Trondson didn’t exactly struggle to make it to the final, not dropping a set, or more than six games in a match, for that matter. In the final, he and another favorite of mine, Leo Vithoontien (Carleton) had what seemed to be an excellent match. I wasn’t able to watch, but the Blog Group Chat was lit up with fellow Bloggers watching and being impressed with both guys. I really would have loved to have seen Leo at nationals, but I have no doubt that the Thai lefty has a lot of great tennis ahead of him, so letting Trondson and HAMLINE have their moment is certainly no crime. The obvious follow up question to this run: could we see both Trondson and Vithoontien at NCAAs? My early answer is a resounding YES!!!
Also, while we’re talking about Hamline, just want to point out that they have a guy on the roster named Levi Duwenhoegger.
The ITA Cup is going to be so much fun. Sadly, Larry Ellison must have decided he no longer wanted to sponsor a tennis tournament with D2/D3/NAIA/JUCO teams only (his loss!), so what was Small College Nationals and then the Oracle Cup is now just the boring “ITA Cup.” Name aside, it’s going to be awesome. I feel like every year it’s the same teams: Chicago, CMS, Emory, CMU, Skidmore, Whitman, Trinity TX, Gustavus, and some NESCAC team. But this year we have UC-Santa Cruz, George Fox, Hobart, and Hamline all making appearances alongside some of the usual suspects (even having Tufts from the Northeast is a breath of fresh air). I don’t think matches will be streamed, sadly, but I’m just so pumped that we could have matches between teams like this in what is essentially the fall national championships. Seriously, Hamline vs Hobart feels more like a Spring Break match in Orlando where both teams are more focused on playing mini golf that night than the tennis than a showdown between some of the nation’s elite. Shoutout to everyone who let the racquets do the talking.
NYU… Look up just about every article I’ve written where I mention NYU if you want my thoughts on them. But I will say that Vishal Walia’s run to the semis was a nice little mini-surprise, and I am really mostly just impressed that the guy hasn’t disappeared like so many NYU guys tend to do. Walia is actually a rare NYU player (shoutout to Steve Wu) who seems to be making steady progress in his game and results from year to year. Coach Halpern’s presence may already be paying dividends.
Quack, Quack, Quack, Mr. Ducksworth. The reference doesn’t totally fit, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to throw in a Mighty Ducks reference every now and then. And you know what team I’m talking about, so it’s good enough. Anyway, all I really have to say about Stevens is that Marc Feliu Gomez, the freshman from Barcelona with a (low reliability) 11.7 UTR is a very intriguing guy to throw into the fray. Stevens is kind of boring because they can sleepwalk their way to the conference title and they haven’t had any real studs since Heinrich, so a new interesting guy, who is international to boot, is nice.
I guess I should say something about Skidmore. JT Wynne hasn’t had the greatest fall in the world after bursting onto the national scene a year ago, and my early impression is that he’s going to have a bit of a “junior slump.” I don’t think he’s going to have much success playing at #1 against the teams Skidmore is looking to beat, but I think he could be a very solid #3 and a respectable #2. Not sure Skidmore can put him down that low, however. With that said, let’s all keep our eyes out for freshman Noah Williamson, a three-star with an 11.88 UTR. He already went three with Sean Wei and beat Josh Quijano (projected Bates #1-2) this fall, and perhaps just as notable was a straight set win over Jed Kronenberg (Pomona #1) this summer. And in the spirit of just saying whatever I want this year, a hearty WTF to Skidmore’s athletic communication staff. I’m sure you are all wonderful people, but it’s not a great look when I click on “stats” from the tennis homepage and I’m led to a page with a link to the 2014-2015 stats and an incomplete list of All-Americans and conference titles.
I legitimately forgot Coe existed. This is going to rile up the Kohawk faithful as usual, but Coe’s ITA was pretty ho-hum. Some of the returning guys like Josh Pudlo, Nate Ackert (who had a great run last fall), and Luke Ford are pretty known quantities, and while all are solid, none will be able to fill the void left by Brady Anderson. Coach Rodgers gets all he can out of his guys and I have no doubt that will be the case again this year, but staying in the national rankings could be tough this year….and dare I say it? The ARC (formerly IIAC) could be up for grabs #WeTheNorse. (this isn’t Luther’s official hashtag, but it should be)
What does this mean? I pointed this out on Twitter, but I’m not sure what to make of it. The New England ITA semifinals featured guys that played #1, #3, #4, and #6 on their teams last year. Does this mean ITA results are kind of meaningless? That the margins between each lineup spot at super thin? There are plenty of other questions I could pose here. Mainly I just wanted to point it out again, because I think at least one reason this happens is because the guys that put in the extra work over the summer are rising to the top, especially against the guys that weren’t out there grinding on court over the past few months.
Shoutout to the people sending me info from tournaments. I’m not going to burn any sources, (side note: we are very trustworthy when it comes to staying anonymous, FYI. If we weren’t it would be pretty hypocritical!) but I just want to say thanks to those that were DMing me draws, scores, and other fun facts and updates from ITAs last weekend. Obviously we can’t be at all of these tournaments, so having extra sets of “eyes and ears” is tremendously helpful and makes it easier for us to give you all the Blogging you crave.
Why does this photo exist? That is exactly what I put in our Group Chat as the all-Chicago ITA final took place on Wednesday. If you zoom in, you can clearly see Yuan/Raclin, the eventual winners, holding champion plaques, while Xu/Pei smile with their finalist plaques. The photo was all over Twitter before the match even started. Makes you think…
(this is probably unnecessary, but I’m going to do it anyway: this is all in good fun. I’m not actually serious and I am joking when I insinuate that there’s some conspiracy happening here….though I would love to know the real story behind why that photo was taken with one team holding the champion plaques instead of each team holding one plaque each)
Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I’m not going to grind out another 1000 words just so everyone gets written about. Those days are over (I’m also just tired). Thanks so much for reading and for your patience and understanding in the delay (not like you had a choice). We truly appreciate YOU. We just recently hit 3 million page views for the Blog, which is crazy when you stop and think about it. Much love to you all. Have a great weekend!