The NE does Cali: Monday, March 14

Hello again, boys and girls! It’s just about March Madness time, which is cause for celebration. Now, you might initially think of Cinderellas, busted brackets and crying piccolo players, but that’s not actually the madness to which i’m referring. Right about Selection Sunday, a bunch of NE schools make their annual pilgrimage to the tennis Mecca that is California. This week, Amherst, Bowdoin, Skidmore, Trinity, Ct, and Tufts all head west, while Wesleyan finishes up its spring break. There are too many matches happening over the course of the next week to do a Regional Roundup style of preview, so instead I’m going to break everything down for you by day. You can expect at least a Monday preview, Tuesday preview, Wednesday preview, Thursday/Friday preview, and weekend preview. That’s a tough promise to keep, so no more wasting time.

Monday, March 14 (all times are Eastern)

#16 Wesleyan vs #6 Trinity Tx @ CMS 1pm

We start off with the biggy right off the bat. Wesleyan is coming off two nice wins over #14 Redlands and a throttling of George Fox, in which the Cards have played some pleasantly surprising doubles. Wes got swept in dubs at Pomona, made a little tweak with its teams, and have combined to go 6-0 in dubs since. They seem to be exuding more confidence, and if you haven’t yet, check out the @CardsTennis Periscope live-feeds of their matches.

It’s a pretty cool idea, to be able to carry a phone or camera with you and get a live feed of at least one court for the fans back home. My guess is we’ll be seeing a lot more teams doing this in 2017. The Tigers are coming off three excruciatingly exhausting matches on Friday and Saturday. Luckily, they have Sunday as a rest day, but fatigue might still play a factor on Monday morning in Cali. The biggest question mark is Deuel, if he’s not 100%, Wes has a significantly higher chance of pulling off the upset. The Tigers still have to certainly be the doubles favorites here, and with so many balls in the air this could easily range all the way from a Tigers sweep to Wesleyan taking a 2-1 lead. I’ll split the difference and say TU takes a 2-1 lead heading into singles. As for the singles…

#1 Liu (Wes) 11.88 vs. Krull (TU) 12.30. If Coach McMindes keeps Krull at #1 for Monday’s match I think this one goes to the Tigers. Krull can hit Liu off the court, and won’t get frustrated easily by Liu’s grinding style of play. If Deuel plays this match, and isn’t 100%, then it’s a matchup that Wesleyan can win. Trinity, 6-3, 6-3.

#2 Chen (Wes) 12.07 vs. Deuel (TU) 12.94. Krull at #1 means Deuel is back to #2. Unfortunately, playing Chen at #2 is not a simple task. Another guy who gets everything back, Chen should be able to wear down a weary Deuel. I think Wesleyan has a better chance to split the top two spots, which should be one of their keys to victory, if Deuel plays #2. Wesleyan, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1.

#3 Eusebio (Wes) 12.90 vs. Lambeth (TU) 11.57. Another mystery for the Cards is Tiago Eusebio. He beat Bello (PP) at #3 last week, but then fell quickly against Redlands on Friday. He has something of a tough time with the #3 from George Fox on Saturday, and I’m not sure if he’s ready to win the big match yet. Lambeth had a tough losses to JK (PP, 6-4 in the 3rd) and Turlington (Kenyon, 7-5 in the 3rd), and also got ravaged by Mork. I liked D3West’s tweet about building off tough learning experiences, and I think Lambeth does so with a match clinching win here. Trinity, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5. 

#4 Roberts (Wes) 11.75 vs. Mayer (TU) 12.18. Roberts is something of a mystery. He can absolutely rocket a forehand, but came up well short against both PP and Redlands last week. Mayer has wins over players that can smack the ball like Bello (PP), and players with a little more finess like Malech (PP) and Klein (Wash U). He should be able to frustrate Roberts, if he has enough gas left in his tank. Trinity, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. 

#5 Samson (Wes) 13.05 vs Tyer (TU) 10.74. The PP Twitter account used one word to describe the match between Malech and Samson last week: polarizing. I think that’s very accurate. Samson is streaky, but has the game to potentially be a #1 singles player. The TU transfer also has a big game, but in this battle of talented team newcomers I’m taking Mr. Samson to have the better day. Wesleyan, 6-1, 6-3. 

#6 Yadav (Wes) 11.66 vs Guin (TU) 10.48. D3West talked about a Niess (11.24) injury in one of his Stag-Hen recaps, and Guin was the 7th man over the weekend so I’ll give him the nod here. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if this is Tyer, Niess, or Guin, Yadav should be the favorite to take home the point. Wesleyan, 7-5, 6-2. 

Total up the points and you get an absolutely exhausted Trinity Texas team scraping by with a 5-4 victory. I’m excited for this match, as I think Wesleyan is getting the Tigers at a perfect time, and we’ll see if they can exploit that. However, there will be another NESCAC infused match happening on the other 1/2 of the CMS court at the very same time…

#34 Trinity Ct vs #7 Bowdoin @CMS 1pm

Unfortunately, there is just simply less to say about this match. This will be our first chance this spring to see either team’s lineup, and I’m especially intrigued to see how both of these teams look in the doubles. I’ve said it before and my guess is I’ll be saying it again this week, but this is not going to be a fun year for Bantam fans. As Stevens has progressed into D3NE territory, I firmly believe we will see Trinity fall into D3Regional territory, and apparently the other writers agree with me, as evidenced by the Bants’ current Blog Power Ranking. Bowdoin had a great fall, and I have very high hopes for the Polar Bears this spring. A doubles sweep over something of a rival (no matter the circumstances) would quell my biggest Bowdoin fears for at least a couple of days. Coach Smith’s crew get Whitman on Wednesday, Skidmore on Thursday, CMS on Saturday, Chapman on next Tuesday, and finally end their trip with Stevens on next Thursday. Given Emory’s recent beat-down of the Stags on their home courts, I bet people think that they’re vulnerable for a couple NESCAC teams to swoop in. D3West and I will be previewing this match later in the week, along with a couple other doozies between our regions, but I take a page out of Mr. Corso’s book and say, “not so fast.” Bowdoin will still be in its 1st week of outdoor matches, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. If I see some solid doubles play from the Polar Bears this week, I’ll see where my regional biases take me. Moving forward I’m also interested to see if the Polar Bears have any issue replacing Bragg or Wolstoncroft. Bragg and his two-handed ping pong backhand will hopefully be replaced by Tercek, and Wolstoncroft’s doubles prowess will hopefully be aided by at least one of the freshmen. For now, I think it’ll be an 8-1 win for Bowdoin over Trinity, with the Bantams lone win coming in the doubles. Trin will have to rebound quickly, as they take on Sewanee on Tuesday, which will be a win they must get if they want to hang on to their top-30 ranking.

#5 Amherst @ Chapman 4pm AND #5 Amherst @ Hope International TBD

We got to take a split-squad styled peak at Coach Doebler’s thoughts on what shape his Amherst lineup might take in 2016. The doubles teams were not surprising. Yaraghi and Zykov played #1 vs. Washington College while Revzin and Solimano played #1 vs. Vassar. I think that they will comprise the top two spots, and the pair of Fife/Bessette, who played #2 vs. Vassar, have a leg-up on #3 for now. That pair made the finals of the ITA, only losing to Solimano/Revzin, and the senior experience/talent of Fife pairs nicely with the inexperienced talent of the freshman in Bessette. I also think that Vassar is a slightly stronger team than Wash College, and has the potential for in-region losses at the top of the lineup that would hurt an individuals shot at NCAAs (Litsky and Cooper).

It makes sense to have the better singles players play against Wash College (Zykov/Yaraghi) and save a better core for the Vassar match (Solimano/Revzin and Bessette/Fife). The most interesting aspect of the singles in the Wash. College match wasn’t the fact that no Amherst player lost more than two games in a set, seriously, a grand total of 11 games were lost at all six-singles spots, but the fact that Zykov got the #1 nod ahead of Yaraghi. It’s possible that they could end up switching throughout the season, but Zykov at #1 has been a long time coming for Amherst. He’s simply an excellent tennis player, and has continued to improve in each of his first 2+ years in college. In Amherst’s match vs Vassar, the purple and white (who desperately need to just settle on the Moose mascot and move on) Revzin played #1, followed by Bessette, Solimano, Fife, and Arnaboldi. Revzin and Bessette playing above Solimano is surprising, and makes me think there might be some switching around come A-team lineups, but for now that makes a projected lineup of Zykov, Yaraghi, Revzin, Bessette, Solimano, and either Fife or Sun with Arnaboldi and Levitin also in the mix. If Rev-O has stepped his game up, and Bessette can constantly win at 4, then Amherst all of a sudden possess the best chance to beat Midd in the entire country (outside of Emory).

Now that we have some idea of what Amherst might trot out for a lineup against a team like Pomona-Pitzer on Tuesday, let’s take a look at the rest of their spring break schedule. After two days of split squadding, Amherst focuses its full attention on the coop on Tuesday. Then, we’re back to split squadding on Thursday and Friday, with three non-DIII teams and Redlands making up the two days of matches. Don’t be surprised to see the majority of the Amherst A-team at Redlands on Friday, even though there is another match going on. No rest for the weary, as Herst will do battle with CMS on Saturday afternoon. As D3West said in his “Week in the West,” we’ll be back to preview that bad-boy once we analyze what Amherst showed against tougher competition like PP and Redlands. However, I think this is a team that Amherst matches up better with than Bowdoin. Amherst will provide some tough doubles (where CMS has shown vulnerability) and a really good top 4. Interesting how similar that is to Midd at this point, no? If Herst can take a 2-1 lead, they certainly have the talent to split singles and take a close match from the Stags. While Bowdoin has the singles potential, and possibly even more depth than Amherst, the doubles is simply too big a weakness.

#30 Skidmore @ #10 Pomona-Pitzer 6pm

Some of the other writers and I are a little down on Skidmore after a 6-3 win over Vassar which looks less and less impressive by the day. However, even with the shade we’ve thrown their way, Skidmore is still 4-0 on the year and has avoided trap matches like NYU and RPI who have given more talented Thoroughbred teams trouble in recent years. Last year, Skidmore pushed PP to the brink. The T-Breds took a 2-1 lead after doubles, and PP had to win 3-setters at both #3 and #5 to pull out the 5-4 win. Now, that PP team wasn’t its full A-team, but it’s hard to fault Skidmore there considering PP didn’t really play the same team until NCAAs last year. This year, I don’t believe Skid will be able to take a lead after doubles, but I do think that Kai Yuen Leung, my reigning POTW will take out Mr Yasgoor at #1 to earn a nice out-of-region singles win. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure where else Skidmore gets points. They might be able to sneak a doubles point, but I see this as a not so close 7-2 or 8-1 Sagehen win. Skidmore has a quick turnaround with Cal Lu on Tuesday. The writers may have been a bit hard on Skid recently, but that’s nothing compared to Cal Lu, who have totally fallen out of our Blog Power Rankings. Finally, Skid plays a regional-foe in Bowdoin on the CMS courts on Thursday before enjoying Cali for a couple days and heading back to Saratoga Springs. Later weekly features will certainly hit Skidmore again, but unless they surprise against PP don’t expect too much love for the T-Breds against a team like Bowdoin.

Well, that was less upbeat than usual, so I apologize. As I said before, I’ll try to be back basically every night this week with a look at the following day’s scheduled action. Between this march madness and that other “March Madness,” this is shaping up to be a fun week.