W&L Stuns ASouth, and Other Stories

What an exciting weekend in the ASouth.  I’m glad that the weekend lived up to expectations. Here are the general recaps, with my personal flair of course.

Hopkins beats Swat, 7-2

This one went pretty much as expected, except we do have an asterisk which I will get into later.  Starting with doubles, I noted that Hopkins was clearly not putting their best team at 1 doubles, and it happened again here.  Maybe they are trying to save their regional ranking.  But Swarthmore won #1 close, and Hopkins rolled at #2 and #3, as expected and predicted.  We’ll see this prompted Hop to move them back next match.  Moving to singles, a really impressive performance by the Jays, and I must say they put this one to sleep early.  However, the thing to note here is Reiter’s injury.  When I heard there was a default after the first set, I thought maybe Reiter lost the first and there was an exec decision to save energy.  But Reiter won the first 6-0.  He ended up not playing the next match, so who knows how serious this injury is.  If anyone has any information, please share – this is a big blow if it’s a serious injury, as I’d peg Reiter as a top 3 #6 player in the nation most days.  Let’s also note that Collard, Swarthmore’s #1 player, was out with back spasms.  With Collard in, maybe Swat takes 1 or 2 of the singles, but that’s a big if.  Again, kudos to the Blue Jays for taking care of business quickly.

CMU beats Washington & Lee, 5-4

I’ll get more into W&L’s weekend later, but this match was surprisingly close – which could have been a telling sign for Sunday’s result.  W&L took two of the doubles spots at #1 and #2, and CMU took the #3 spot.  It looks like none of these matches were close, which is telling.  The Holt/Shamshiri combo impressed again with a routine win over a solid CMU #1 team, and Hayden White probably carried that #2 team to victory.  Really awesome result for W&L in doubles considering CMU had actually been playing good doubles as of late.  Moving onto singles, W&L won at #1 and #5.  I had predicted that CMU would win 2-6 singles, but if the players at the bottom of the lineup struggled then it would have been a bad sign for CMU moving to the next match.  Well, they lost at #5, which prompted a lineup change the next day.  There are a couple of things to take from this match.  As we knew, White is the real deal at #1, with a very impressive victory over Heaney-Secord.  However, the CMU singles lineup is a bit too deep for them, and there really wasn’t much doubt at 2-4 and 6, barring tiebreakers at 2 and 3.  It’s very interesting to see that the higher ranked and regarded team coming out on top in tiebreakers.  It’s something we’ll see in the Hopkins/CMU matchup.  Would love to see tiebreaker records for the higher ranked team, I’m sure it’ll be heavily weighted towards them.  Overall, this was a win for both teams.  CMU notched another regional win, and W&L showed they can compete with at least some mid-level teams.

Hopkins beats CMU, 7-2

This was my big match of the weekend, and not to brag, but it looks like I called it pretty spot on.  Let’s note that Hopkins switched their 1 and 2 doubles teams, finally.  What happened in the matches validated this, as the #2 team got routinely beaten 8-4 and Brown/Lim won 8-6 at 1.  As I stated in predictions, CMU really needed to get out ahead in doubles and lost a chance at 1.  The last tweet from the CMU tennis twitter shows 5-6 as the latest update, so they got broken late in that match (this was terrible to follow on twitter btw).  So, down 2-1 in doubles, Hopkins was in major control considering their singles lineup.  A few lineup things to note – replacing Reiter was freshman Nick Garcia, who I don’t have too much knowledge on other than his weak ITA’s.  Also, CMU switched at 5 and 6 singles, moving freshman Hasegawa down a spot and senior Rao up.  As expected, #1 singles was a battle and went to three sets (called this one too) and Heaney-Secord came up with a big regional win over Brown, who had previously been unstoppable.  Both these guys are legit #1 players.  Hopkins notched what look to be close but routine wins at 4 and 5, giving the Jays a 4-1 lead (based on match order).  It looks like #2, 3, and 6 were swing matches, and Hopkins came out ahead in all 3.  At #2, Hersh and Alla look like they battled, as they were the last match on – Hersh came out on top 7-5, 7-5.  At #3, Hwang beat Miller 7-6, 7-5, and at #6, Garcia beat Hasegawa 6-3, 7-6.  This is where we see my earlier statement about how higher ranked teams seem to pull out breakers.  Three breakers and three 7-5 sets all went Hopkins way, sealing what looks on the outside to be a convincing victory for Hop.  I think this was a good test for them and they rose to the occasion and put down a team that is fighting for their lives.  In addition, this was a good start for Garcia if he is going to be at #6 for the rest of the year.  One thing I might like to see is what Schwartz can do at #6, he had a really great fall.  But if they are winning, I can’t complain.  As for CMU, this looks to be a much more spirited performance than a few of their previous matches.  It’s all about stepping up for this team, as their schedule is running out.  One thing I might consider is giving Hasegawa a break and putting in the senior Yu in at #6, he had some clutch wins last year and it is his last season.  Overall, I came away impressed with Hopkins performance and much looking forward to their draw in NCAAs, where they should get a #1 seed and host a region with a tough #2.  For CMU, they currently sit on the bubble/last one in Pool C, but they need that one signature win (Kenyon, UAA tournament) to make a strong case.

Washington and Lee beats NCW, 7-2

Let’s start off by giving a shoutout to all those W&L players who tweeted at me on Sunday night.  I’ve been critical of the program this season, but as every writer/blogger/critic should do, if you’re wrong then you should admit it.   This is obviously a really great win for W&L, taking out a top-15 team and proving me wrong in the process.  Gotta appreciate when a team comes together and says “haters gon hate.”

Moving on to the actual match, doubles is where this one was basically won.  You can’t underestimate the demoralizing feeling when you get swept in doubles, and only the best teams are usually able to come back

from a doubles sweep.  Shamshiri/Holt notched ANOTHER significant win at #1 doubles.  They’ve now beaten NCW, CMU, and Mary Washington (8-0), so they should be a lock for NCAAs barring any severe letdowns.  Must say I’m impressed.  W&L’s solid two team knocked off Ljungdahl and Pola easily, and the #3 team grinded out a close win to basically seal the deal for the “Dancing Gennies.”  In singles, huge huge win for Hayden White over Kjellberg, 7-6 in the third set, to give himself the #1 ranking in the region.  He’s now beaten Halpern, Heaney-Secord (who just beat Brown), and Kjellberg – who represent #2-5.  Moving on, it looks like W&L’s freshman Holt is the real deal, as he beats Ljungdahl and took Miller in the previous match to a tiebreaker.   That’s a huge boost for a team that didn’t really have a heralded recruiting class.  Moving onto 4-6, I admittedly did not know much about either of these teams players, and I somehow predicted the matches correctly.  Clearly, this was just luck.   It’s also clear that NCW has a really weak 4-6 at the moment, even if they pulled it out at 6.  I was actually expecting some close matches at the bottom of the lineup but it looked pretty routine at each position.  Thankfully for NCW, Prostak notched an easy win over Shamshiri.  I haven’t been a fan of Shamshiri’s singles results, but if he keeps it up in doubles I can’t really say much.  Good win for Prostak, he’s definitely proven to be a quality #2 player in DIII.  Overall, this is obviously a big time boost for the Generals.  With their loss to Mary Washington, I’m not really sure where they’ll be put, but they have another shot at the Eagles at home later on in the year.  If they take that match, I’d say they’d be in the 15-20 range and may even be able to avoid Emory’s region in NCAAs.  With a solid doubles lineup and good #1 player, maybe they can make some noise.  In regards to NCW, their season is basically set in stone, but they now just royally effed themselves because I have no doubt they’ll get placed in Atlanta for regionals.  The Bishops are looking at a ranking from #19-23 or something, which is good for a #3 seed in the Emory region, as we saw last year.  This also hurts anyone that has relied on beating NCW this year (looking at you, Case).

Again, awesome weekend in ASouth.  Wish I had more twitter updates to follow, but the boxscores were good enough.  I’m really positive on Hopkins and W&L improvement the past few matches.  CMU is still iffy to me, but they’re still talented and “had chances” (quote from their Asst. Coach).  We know what we’re getting from Swarthmore, and apparently we don’t know what we’re getting from NCW.  Emory rules all.