Emory Region Recap

Hey everyone! I’d like to introduce myself as a new writer for the team.  I am D3ASouthWomen, and my first article will actually cover the men’s Southeast regional (I’ll have a women’s article soon, I promise). This tournament was once again dominated by Emory, but there were a few nice performances that showed some other schools are raising their level.  I’m gonna give my thoughts on each school’s performance.

1.       Emory

Emory clearly dominates this tournament every year and did so again by having both finalists.  First off, congrats to Rafe Mosetick!  Rafe only dropped one set (to a teammate) all tournament and, if I’m not mistaken, hasn’t lost a division 3 singles match since September last year.  This is exactly the type of performance you want to see from your senior captain and is the level Emory will need from him in the spring.  It’s good to see that he’s picking up right where he left off.  In the finals, Rafe played freshman teammate Jonathan Jemison.  Having a freshman reach the finals, and take out Antonio, has got to be encouraging for Emory.  Jemison seems like he could be a very strong number 2 for the Eagles.  Apart from those two, however, no one from Emory made that big of a splash.  Manji pushed Rafe in the quarterfinals just like he did to Halpern a year ago, but was unable to get that breakthrough win.  The best singles performance outside of Rafe and Jemison was transfer Andrew Harrington, who took out Schober in a 3 set battle, and then lost a close 3 set match to Sikh later the same day.  An all freshmen team made the finals of the doubles, but any time Emory doesn’t come away with the title it’s seen as a disappointment.  Emory looks to have good depth, but they need someone to step up to fill the middle of the lineup.

2.    N.C. Wesleyan

There is no way that N.C. Wesleyan isn’t feeling the loss of Robert Kjellberg, but they actually have a lot of positives to take away from this tournament.  Sebastian Sikh and newcomer Ioannis Brokakis (great name) both had very solid tournaments.  Brokakis was able to make the quarters before falling to Jemison and should be a very solid 2 for them.  Sikh turned out a really stellar performance though; He beat Josh Goodman from Emory who is a very tough player and then followed it up with another win against what looks to be a strong Emory player.  Sikh has large shoes to fill at the top of N.C. Wesleyan’s lineup, but he has a big enough game that he can be a threat to any number 1 player in the country.  Sikh and Brokakis may have lost earlier in the doubles than they would have liked, but I would chalk that up to both of them having two long singles matches earlier in the day.  One thing to note is that it looks like Fabio Pereira has transferred which hurts the Bishops’ chances of mantaining a top 25 ranking.

3.       Sewanee

Sewanee had a very interesting tournament.  On the one hand they didn’t get a singles player past the round of 16.  Schober and Roddy have to be a little disappointed with that.  On the other hand they won the doubles!  Congrats to senior Eric Roddy and freshman Jack Gray!  Roddy has always been a tricky doubles player and Sewanee has to be happy to have a freshman step up like this.  I think that Sewanee could be a top 25 team in the nation this year if they gain a little confidence.  Every spring Sewanee seems like the kind of team that beats who they’re supposed to beat, but doesn’t believe they can pull off an upset.

4.       Oglethorpe

From a team point of view this was a disappointing tournament for Oglethorpe; they only had one player get past the second round of singles and they had zero doubles wins.  But that one player made the semifinals and knocked off two good Emory players fairly handily.  I have to say that I did not think Antonio would do much of anything in this tournament and he proved me wrong.  A 6-1, 6-3 win over Rubinstein (who played some court 5 for Emory last year) and another straight set win over Alec Josepher (An Emory transfer who had just beaten Roddy) showed that CJ’s results from last year were no mistake.  If CJ goes close to undefeated again this year he could snag another trip to NCAA individuals.

5.       The Rest

When Emory has 10 players in the round of 16 it’s hard for any other schools to make a statement.  Elliot Blatt of Rhodes has made runs in the past, but was beaten second round this year.  Millsaps had a doubles team reach the quarterfinals which is something they can grow on.  In summary, Emory continues to dominate, N.C. Wesleyan shows that they are not going away even after the loss of Kjellberg, and Sewanee names two All-Americans! All around a fun weekend.  No rest for the weary, I’ve got a preview of the women’s southeast regional coming in a day or two.  Stay tuned!