St. Louis ITA Wrap Up

I really should rename this article to Chicago wrap up because that really is what this tournament was about. Again, instead of doing a traditional recap, I thought I would just list the things that really stood out to me.

1. Chicago is ridiculously good. While I expected (and predicted) that this tournament would be dominated by Chicago, I fully anticipated that Wash U would be there with them. I will save the Wash U talk for other points. I believe Chicago had 10 entrants in the main draw of singles this year. 9 of which made it to the second day (Hawkins lost in three sets to 3 seed Geier), 7 of those made it the round of 16, 5 to the quarters, and 3 to the semis, with the final still yet to be played this afternoon. That’s stupid good. The part about this stat that I like the most is the fact that five of the nine who were eliminated from the tourney will be at the hands of their teammates. One has to wonder how this all would have shaken out if they didn’t play one another. In doubles, they had three teams in the quarters two of which had to play one another. To come out with a champion over relatively strong competition is saying something. The fact that Chua and David Liu played #3 doubles together last season makes it even better. All and all, this was pure domination by the Maroons. I am not sure it could have gone any better really and Coach Tee has to be ecstatic. The message to the rest of the nationally ranked teams: Beware!
2. John Carswell continues his decline. I truly hate that I have to talk about this and will take it easy on the once feared player. John Carswell was again upset in the first round. I will say that I did put him on upset alert because Selin (from Chicago) had a good ITA last year and is a tough draw for anyone. He didn’t just get beat, he got bageled in the second set. I think one has to start to question his motivation because a player of his caliber should never get bageled. My bigger concern is his loss in the back draw. He lost to Quinn Jennings of Elmhurst. I mean no disrespect to Jennings because this is a HUGE win for him, but this is a guy that was also unseeded and didn’t finish in the rankings of the Central at any time late last season. Again, props to Quinn for taking him down because that’s pretty awesome. I honestly can’t fathom where Carswell will be in the lineup this year, but if he is anywhere near the top 3, I would be shocked. He just isn’t the same player that he was just two short years ago.
3. Wash U should be worried. D3 West asked me on twitter what I thought about Wash U not getting any players or dubs teams to the quarter finals of either draw and I didn’t really know how to answer because it really is shocking. Looking closer, Wash U didn’t even have a player reach the round of 16 in singles! That’s got to bring up some cause for concern for Coach Follmer. They caught the Chicago virus as the majority of the team was taken out by Maroons. I had these two teams on equal footing heading into this tournament, but now that is not the case. With Carswell struggling, Putterman and Chu graduated, and no new freshman studs, Wash U is a team full of average doubles players and 4-6 singles guys. That does not bode well for a team used to making the final 4. I expect better for the Bears in the spring, but am struggling to visualize this team as a top 10 squad let alone top 15-20.
4. Kenyon and Case lived up to my expectations. Normally this would be a good thing, but the problem is my expectations were set pretty low. Krimbill will always struggle to win this tournament because he just makes deep runs. His loss to Metzler was unexpected and I will chalk that up to the marathon win he had over the Chicago freshman Pei in the previous round. He and Stuerke repeated as finalists, but couldn’t get over the hump with the win. Either way, they will be national contenders in doubles again this year. It also was great to see James Fojtasek back playing and Case is going to need him this season. As for Kenyon, Luke Tsai seems to be the kryptonite for Lord top players as he took out Geier this year and Heerboth last year. Having two dubs tandems in the semis is a great thing and will hopefully propel them heading into the spring. Both Kenyon and Case are down this year and both will need to scrape out wins come spring time to stay in the top 20.
5. Brandon Metzler deserves my apology. This was a big result for Metzler getting all the way to the semis. I have harped on his fitness level and how it holds him back from doing big things in the region, but taking out Krimbill in three sets was big and he followed it up with a close three set loss to Max Liu in the semis. Falling early in dubs probably helped, but Metzler must have put in some solid work this summer. Props to you for a good tourney and I hope you have a good schedule to make a return trip to nationals like you did two years ago.
6. Who is Thomas Manning? I can’t give a shout out to Metzler without mentioning Thomas Manning from Allegheny. I know who he is, but you probably don’t! Manning plays #2 for Allegheny and much more known for his doubles with partner Tyler Triolo than he is for his singles. Unfortunately they fell early in dubs, but Manning made up for it with a great run in singles. I had him on upset alert against unseeded Wash U freshman Radha Vishnubhotla, but he came away from that match with ease and followed it up with a good win over NCAC foe Ian Paik from Oberlin (the 8 seed). Those wins are solid to say the least, but still not fantastic. Manning really opened eyes after taking the first set off Nick Chua. I have yet to confirm this, but I hear he was also up 4-2 in the second, but couldn’t hold on. While that stings a little bit, this was a great tournament for Manning. He was last year’s Peter Harris from Baldwin Wallace who also did very well in the back draw this season.
7. Upset alerts went fairly well. I might have missed a few early upsets with my Paik and Reifeis prediction, but my upset alerts were on point. I had Carswell, Kratky, Stadnyk, Bush, Mora, Bera, and Fukamachi all on upset alert when they fell in their rounds. I also mentioned that the upsets in the first round would be to lower seeded players and there were quite a few with the 6, 9, 10, 22, and 23 all falling in the first. It’s a tough tournament where the draw can be really friendly or really mean and these guys didn’t get a great draw.
8. Luke Tsai is the real deal. For the second year in a row, Luke Tsai made a great run with this time getting all the way to the semi finals of the tournament. I pegged him as a sleeper and was he ever! Tsai took out Sam Geier (3 seed) and teammate Peter Leung (11 seed) on his way to the semi finals before losing to another teammate in Chua yesterday. This kid can flat out play tennis and will be extremely difficult to beat at the lower end of the Chicago lineup. I think it’s great because coming into last year he was probably the least talked about freshman on the ridiculous class and now he is an integral part of the singles and doubles lineup.
9. Chicago is ridiculously good. Did I mention this already? haha Let’s just take a look at a projected lineup.
   1. Nick Chua
   2. Max Liu
   3. Sven Kranz
   4. Charlie Pei
   5. Peter Leung
   6. Luke Tsai
   7. David Liu
   8. Jonathan Li
   9. Michael Selin
   10. Max Hawkins
   11. – 16 are also really good! haha What does that all mean? Well to me it means that Chicago could have a top 10 ranked “B” team! With all this depth at his disposal, Coach Tee is in a great place because he can rest guys with injury, adjust to academic schedules/requirements at a top school, and tinker with the lineup based off who is playing well and who isn’t. He also can take a vacation if he wants because none of those guys above are seniors. Let me take a brief moment to talk about the Chicago freshmen in Pei, Max Liu, and Li. These guys showed they can absolutely ball and will all be big parts of the Chicago team this spring. Pei lost an absolute war with Krimbill which probably cost Krimbill the next round, Liu is playing teammate Chua in the final later today, and Li is no slouch either that will definitely feature at some point this season. Liu might very well continue to impress. While his final TR.net ranking was lower than Pei, if you look at the past 4 years, he was in the top 75 in his class three out of four years. If he pulls a Nick Chua and emerges as a top of the lineup kind of guy, holy crap this team is dirty. If you weren’t on the Chicago bandwagon before, hop on now before it’s too late. I have them and Middlebury as the early favorites for a national title. There I said it! Can’t wait to see what Chicago does at Indoors this season with a wide open field.

Well I couldn’t think of a 10th item to add so I think I will just leave it at that. In summary, Chicago was 5 steps ahead of everyone else, Wash U had a sad showing, Case/Kenyon/Denison/Depauw are all shells of themselves, and Metzler/Manning were the surprises of the tournament in my eyes. Oh I don’t want people up in the Gustavus/Whitewater ITA to feel left out. Your ITA doesn’t really have enough to talk about to give a full preview, but here is how I see it going. There are 4 guys with legit shots to win it. Jake Humphreys (WW), Mohaned Al-Houni (Gustavus) , Michael Treis (WW), and Brady Anderson (Coe) in that order. If anything other than that happens, I will be blown away. Good luck to everyone in the quest for All-American status!