ITA West Regional Preview

Hello beloved D3 tennis fans! It is my pleasure to bring you the exclusive CMS Region, excuse me, I mean West Region ITA preview. I am “the new guy” that the D3West so lovingly referred to in his Burning Questions article, and I will give my very professional predictions for the toughest ITA in the nation (shots fired).  Historically the Fall ITA has been dominated by the lower end of CMS’s lineup, as they tend to come out of the woodworks during these individual tournaments and end up ousting more than a couple of seeds. I doubt this year will be much different, so watch those first round matchups with the Stags, upsets are definitely on the horizon.

Teams:

#2 CMS, #11 P-P, #19 Whittier, #20 Cal Lutheran, #21 Redlands, #23 UCSC, Chapman, Caltech, Oxy and Colorado College.

Singles

My Pick:

The first thing that struck me when I was finally able to look at the draw this afternoon was the strength of the top four seeds: #1 Wood, #2 Marino, #3 Cardenas, #4 Butts. Any one of these four players can make a run in this tournament and end up with a trip to Fall Nationals. Wood, who bowed out early as the one seed last year to Jake Yasgoor from P-P, looks to be set up for another matchup with Yasgoor this year in the quarters. Marino and Cardenas got two of the better draws in the tournament. It’s a pretty safe bet to place them in at least the semi’s unless something crazy happens (and I hope it does, I hate predictable tournaments!).

That leaves the defending champ, Skyler Butts. He was able to win last year by grinding out a couple of wins against very strong opponents (Konstantinov, Dorn, etc.), and it will be interesting to see if he can pull together a repeat performance. His draw could get tricky, as a possible quarters match up with Redlands #1 Lipscomb is not ideal, but hey, Butts has definitely proven himself able to gut out tough matches.

Since I am forced to pick 1 of these players, I am going to go with my gut and pick:

CMS: Nik Marino (2)

He has always been a very consistent performer in these individual tournaments and simply refuses to lose to someone who isn’t playing their best tennis. The reason I didn’t pick Wood is because for the last couple of years he hasn’t really stepped up to the plate for the Fall ITA, and Marino has direct wins over both Butts and Cardenas.

Players to watch:

I’m going with the obvious picks for players to watch here in that they are the next couple of seeds:

PP: Jake Yasgoor (6)

Yasgoor is a very talented player and could very well upset the 1 seed here for the second straight year. That being said he has to go through the proverbial CMS gauntlet with Lester Yeh First round and a possible meeting with Morkovine in the third, both of whom are solid players in the own right.

Redlands: Patrick Lipscomb (5)

Lipscomb is one of those players who, if you catch on the right day, could make you wish you didn’t pick up a racket. That being said, he has to putting together an entire tournament worth of good days and against the pretty stiff competition of this years ITA it will be tough to say the least.

Dark Horses:

CMS: Patrick Wildman and PP: Antony Bello (9)

Wildman (which is just an incredible last name) is a four star CMS freshman and the only freshman currently on the team. I haven’t seen him play much, and maybe I only picked him because he has the best last name in the draw, but regardless I am sticking to it.

Bello on the other hand, was largely a doubles player for the Hens last year, with only a few matches played in the 5 or 6 position (please refer to the Pomona Pitzer “revolving door”), but he turned out to be a solid doubles player. I am certainly interested to see if his game can translate to the singles court.

First Round Matches to Watch:

There are a couple of first rounds that should be fun to see.

Oxy: Josh Dancu v. PP: Josh Kim (insert lame battle of the Josh’s joke here)

This should be an interesting one to watch. Dancu was a fairly solid #1 for Oxy last year while Josh Kim, was a rock at the bottom of  PP’s lineup last year and by all reports has only gotten better. Dancu should be able to get by this one, but by no means will it be easy.

PP: Jake Yasgoor (6) v. CMS Lester Yeh

CLU: Connor Treacy (9) v. CMS Patrick Wildman

CLU: Moises Cardenas (3) v. CMS Alex Brenner

Because you always have to watch those CMS first rounds.

Doubles

My Pick:

UCSC: Littlejohn/Deguchi

Honestly, doubles is going to be crazy. Almost all of the dominant teams from last year are broken up; Dorn is abroad, and Kotrappa, Pereverzin, Wiechert, and Nichols all graduated. Since Littlejohn and Deguchi were able to win it last year, and Littlejohn always finds a way to step up his doubles game come tournament time I gotta go with them as my favorite. You’ll notice that I did shy away from picking the 1 seed. Although I know Marino and Wood are both very good players I am not sure how their games will gel on the doubles court. Plus they both got mentioned for singles, so no need to be greedy.

Players to Watch:

CMS: Marino/Wood

In the highly unlikely event that I am wrong, I atleast have to put these guys into the equation. So here they are.

PP: Yasgoor/Bello

Bello is a good doubles player, Yasgoor is a good singles player. If they end up meshing well, they could be a very scary team on the doubles court.

CMS: Butts/Morkovine

I don’t know much about Morkovine’s doubles prowess, but I do know Butts is solid and plays some smart doubles.

Redlands: Lipscomb/Leahy

These two have played together on and off for the last couple of years at both 1 and 2 doubles with mixed success. They are a senior team, and one of the few in this tournament with multi-year experience playing together so I’m predicting a solid performance.

CLU: Cardenas/Scott

These guys put together a solid performance at #2 doubles last year. They are fiery and they have some experience playing together. Expect them to grab at least a couple wins.

Dark Horses:

Whittier: Farmer/Stanko

Farmer has got a big serve and when he is hot, he can seriously play. And although I don’t know much about Stanko, since they were put in as Whittier’s #1 team he must be pretty good.

CLU: Treacy/Valdez

Treacy put together a good tournament last year with his partner Alex Nichols. I know next to nothing about Valdez so I think they fit the definition of ‘dark horse’.

Welp, that’s all I have for the matches. I apologize for not using any nifty images in my first article, there will be some in the future. I am very excited to see what happens this weekend, and all of you readers can look forward to my very witty tweets during the tournament. I hope you enjoyed the article, D3Westtennis out.

p.s. Rumor has it that the legend Nick Ballou will be making an appearance at the tournament this weekend. Keep your eyes peeled.