To start us off, the draws can be found here.
Singles
Up until about the semifinals, this tournament went exactly as I expected it to (which, it’s worth noting, is kinda rare). Emory complete dominated, easily taking out the seeds from their outmatched opponents, while Kjellberg hung in there. 12 out of the 13 players Emory managed to put into the draw made it to the Round of 16, and from there they basically started taking themselves out. I’ll admit, basically the only reason I didn’t think Kjellberg would win it was because he would have to run a proverbial gauntlet of Eagles to pull it off, but my hat’s off too him. He managed to beat four straight Emory players in the last four rounds to win the tournament, and he apparently won the final in dramatic fashion. On a larger scope, there’s not much we can learn from the tournament though. If I were to take anything away from it, I would say:
A) Kjellberg’s performance in the tournament was absolutely incredible, but did anyone else notice that he only had one teammate in the A bracket with him (Sewanee got 7, Rhodes got 8)? Did anyone then go to the B bracket to see if there were any Battling Bishops in there and notice that there weren’t any in there either? There are either only two people on their roster that wanted to play in the tournament, or there are only two people who are actually on their roster. Kjellberg could win every match he plays this year, but that won’t help the Battling Bishops retain their top 15 status. They were tragically underrated last year, but they are incredibly overrated at #13 right now. They should probably pull out of Indoors.
B) Emory is obviously incredibly deep, but something bugs me about the fact that none of them beat Kjellberg. They need someone to step up and fill Pottish’s shoes. Nobody did it… yet.
Doubles
Basically the same thing happened in doubles as singles. Emory got 6 teams into the quarterfinals. Kjellberg and Prostak hung in there for a little bit before falling in a tiebreaker. Isaacs and Sczczcczczczczurk established themselves as the best Emory doubles team, but they will have three teams that are very comparable this year.
The Bishops have a legit #1 and a solid 2 and 3. Also a very talented #1 doubs team. Kjellberg is the real deal and might be a singles national champion soon if he keeps playing well. Prostak is a great player and can beat anyone on any given day if he plays well. Just ask Hersh. Sonn is also very talented and has a lot of big match experience for the bishops clinching the match against Kenyon last year. After these 3 guys are the question marks…. They will have to have someone step up into those 4-6 spots and bottom doubles if they have any chance to contend this year with the top teams. Their schedule is brutal and if they have any injuries they could be below 500 for the 1st time in a long time. That being said as long as they dont take methodist and cnu lightly, they should win the conference rather easily. Emory is def deep this year but they lack that superstar that they had in Pottish and both Goodwins the last 6 yrs or so. That being said I would still not count them out of anything. They are deep as can be and could still beat anyone in the country if they play well.
Impressive to defeat Emory’s lineup in singles in two days. So apparently Kjellberg know how to play tennis!
If you only take two people to the ITA’s you don’t have to count it as a team date of competition.
I didn’t even think about that. I guess it never occurred to me that a team might put the Elon Invitational over the Fall regionals, but since that one had a consolation, I guess the players got more match experience than they would have.
Pretty clever and it would be cheaper too. Interesting side note Richardson has coached an ITA winner the last three years at CNU and NC Wesleyan both from the same conference which brings up the question why did he leave CNU for NC Wesleyan with CNU head coach job open?
He didn’t leave Cnu for Wesleyan do your research
ITA’s at Emory had a backdraw. The director was negligent in posting it. I like how the tournament at MW is set up, with 8 flights, and all results(backdraw too)are posted. NC Wes didn’t have much sucess at Elon. Kjelberg and Sonn reached their flight cons finals. They will still win conference but not a top 20 program this year.