ASouth ITA Mashup – Emory Dominates, Stories from UMW

So, I know I missed the Emory ITA preview.  First off, I know I keep calling it the Emory ITA preview even though it’s actually held at Sewanee, so shoutout to Sewanee for hosting this thing every year.  Y’all have some nice outside courts.  On a positive note, I didn’t miss the UMW ITA Preview and that tournament had some real surprises today.  In this somewhat short post, I’m going to go through the main stories from both the Emory and Mary Washington ITAs and give you some expectations for tomorrow (or today, depending when this gets posted).  Let’s start with the Emory ITA, move onto the Mary Wash ITA, then I’ll give you some final thoughts.

Emory ITA

The Emory ITA was absolutely dominated by Emory.  Sewanee doesn’t have an updated draw out there, but I know who the semifinalists are.  There are definitely some big winners and losers out of this tournament, let’s go through some of the teams and performances that stand out to me.

Winner – Emory – Well, Emory is the big winner here, as they always are.  They were a few games away from taking all 8 quarterfinal spots.  That’s right, all the quarterfinal spots.  Although this isn’t the most competitive regional historically, that doesn’t mean that wouldn’t have been a feat.  Alec Josepher (who probably projects to be Emory’s #8 player) almost took out Avery Schober (the #2 seed) in the Round of 16.  Anyways, enough about the losers – Jemison, Manji, Bouchet, Goodman, Serituk (freshman), Kenawi (freshman), and Rubinstein all made the quarters.  All of them looked pretty damn good.  Basically, Emory is going to come out of this tournament with no reason to panic, which is all you can really ask for in the fall.

Winner – Avery Schober – I think this tweet said it well:

Schober of Sewanee keeps the small guys dream alive in a sea of Eagles

— d3AtlanticSouth (@d3AtlanticSouth) October 1, 2016

Schober was about to go down as mentioned earlier, but gritted out a win against Josepher and then took out Rubinstein in the quarterfinals.  He has Aman Manji tomorrow in what should be a great match.  I honestly have the edge for Manji, who is one of the Eagles’ senior captains, but Schober has shown that he can play with the Emory lineup for years now.  Good luck to you Avery, keep the small man’s dream alive.

Winner – Rex Serituk – Other than having one of the sickest names in all of DIII, Serituk has now made the semifinals of his first ever ITA.  He took out none other than his teammate Adrien Bouchet Bouchet Bouchet in the quarterfinals.  It should be interesting to see where Serituk places in the lineup, assuming he falters against Jemison tomorrow in the semifinal.  If he wins, man, does Emory have a solid top 4 once again.  What should his nickname be? Is T-Rex too basic? Should I order you a PSL with that as well? @EmoryMensTennis, help me out with a nickname. I know you’re reading this.

Loser – NC Wesleyan – NCW usually comes into this tournament with at least two players that can make it to the semifinals.  These two players this year were Sebastian Sikh and JD Telles, who Reg ASouth (who is MIA, btw) has been hyping up a ton.  Well, Sikh lost in the first round to a Sewanee freshman (Andres Carro) and Telles lost to Serituk in the Round of 16.  I can excuse the loss to Rex, but man, NCW might be looking at another long year.  Watch out for those American recruits, right Coach Hale? Sorry, I had to.

Loser – Any other team – We used to have CJ Antonio represent Oglethorpe and Eliot Blatt represent Rhodes, who could pull off upsets against some of the lower seeded Emory players.  This year was NOT that year.  Emory zoomed into the quarterfinals with nothing really to challenge them.  Is Emory that good, or is the rest of the tournament that weak?  Might be a little bit of both.

Mary Wash ITA

This was by far the more exciting ITA, although it lost a little bit of its luster given that super tiebreakers were played instead of full thirds, because the East Coast is just being hit by thunderstorms and rain and stuff.  Anyways, there’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it as I always do.  I just realized that I haven’t gotten many GoT references in lately.  That’s disappointing.  I need Season 7.

Winner – Hopkins – #HEREWEGOHOP.  What a start for the Jays.  I was talking with the Guru about how we don’t really ever know what to expect out of Hop year after year, but for the most part they perform well in the ITA tournament, especially against CMU.  Well, they came out here again today and did well.  MVP Buxbaum lost 4 games.  Matt Sklar, their freshman, took out Kenny Zheng of CMU in the first round in a super breaker.  David Perez is still playing but I believe he’s up and should make the R16.  Freshman Aaron Carey took out John Larkin of Swarthmore and has a matchup against Rosenvasser of CMU tomorrow.  Dubin is into the Round of 16 with a solid win over CMU freshman Prettyman.  Freshman Austin Gu took out Jordan Krasner of W&L in the Round of 32 in a surprisingly routine upset.  The only blemish for the Jays was Emerson Walsh losing in a tight super breaker.  Oh, and their use of the hashtag, #RollJays, of course.  Let’s get some originality, folks.

Winner – Swarthmore’s #SwatTeam – Okay, Swarthmore looks like the second best team in the tournament right now and I’m not joking (well, I’m exaggerating though. But third best!).  Buoyed by my pick of Mark Fallati to win the whole damn thing, Swat had some nice performances from their lower ranked guys in a surprise.  Maybe they were mad that I didn’t mention them in my kickoff article.  Oops.  Anyways, Josh Powell (who projects to be their #4 or #5, was able to beat Calzolano (CMU) and Sir William Bannister of W&L.  Those are two big wins for Powell and I’m excited to see what he can do at the bottom of Swarthmore’s lineup.  At this point, he could overtake Cepelewicz who took a first round loss.  Fallati had an easy day, making the Round of 16.  Unfortunately, Larkin took a tough loss in the first round against a Hopkins freshman (tough draw) and Cepelewicz got routined by Matthew Miles of UMW.  The top 4 for Swarthmore projects to be Fallati/Larkin/Powell/Cepelewicz.  That’s not bad.

Neutral/Loser – CMU – I’m not really sure what to make of this tournament so far for CMU.  Arora and Zheng took three set super breaker losses.  Those two had solid years last year at the bottom of the lineup.  Arora’s loss was surprising against a relative unknown from Wilkes.  Wadwani was able to take his first match, but then lost to Salas of F&M (meh).  Prettyman, one of their top freshmen, gave Dubin a go at it in two tough sets.  Robert Levin, another freshman, showed that he probably won’t crack the lineup this year with a routine loss to Soome of AV.  I don’t know what AV stands for, can someone help me out?  Levine and Rosenvasser (Freshman) look legit as they should, making the Round of 16 with ease.  I’d also like to point out that Chaz Downing has not been playing all fall.  Looks like another injury to the sophomore so CMU will hope that he comes back strong like last year.  CMU leaves this tournament with a lot of question marks out of the bottom of hteir lineup.  Can Wadwani and Zheng regain the form that made them All-Blog team members maybe a couple of years ago? Also, where in the world is Kiril Kirkov (the B draw)?  Prettyman is a question mark although he had a tough draw.  Calzolano/Levin took losses I’d rather not have them take.  CMU has work to do, but it’s not all bad just yet.

Loser – Seeds – A few seeds were taken out early this round.  Other than the aforementioned Zheng, Wadwani, and Arora (ouch), a few more were taken out.  David Reed of CNU got easily beaten by UMW’s Matt Miles.  MIles is a good player, but man, you expect more out of a seed.  “Air” Jordan Krasner was beaten by a Hopkins freshman.  Emerson Walsh of Hopkins was the lone Hopkins victim and he lost in a super breaker as well.  While a few upsets are to be expected, I think it was the people who got upset that surprised me the most.

Winner – Matt Miles and the Eagles – Wow, Miles was a big winner so far.  Miles crushed David Reed of CNU and looks like maybe, just maybe, he might be a top of the lineup player.  Miles and Brandon Griffin of UMW are still in it and if I’m the Eagles and Coach Helbing, I’m happy about that.  Michael Fleming, their young frehsman, is also still in it.  That gives them more Round of 16 players than CMU.  What an accomplishment.

What to Expect, Best Matches of Tomorrow

Well, in the Emory Regional, there are only two matches to start tomorrow – one is Jemison/Serituk and the other is Manji/Schober.  Jemison/Serituk should be a nice one.  I expect Jay to take this one because he was the best freshman last year and it wasn’t even close.  Shoutout to D3Northeast.  Manji/Schober will be interesting.  I think Manji has the advantage and I think he takes that one in straights.  That leaves Jemison vs. Manji in the finals, where Jemison again has the advantage.  I just believe in the double J.

In the UMW ITA, Brandon Griffin (UMW) vs. David Perez (JHU) is one of my first matches to watch.  Griffin has gone under the radar as I continue to focus on the Hopkins/CMU rivalry, but this is where Griffin made his run last year, so who knows what will happen this year.  Perez, on the other hand, had a great end to last season, even with that tough NCAA loss.  This will be a good matchup against two up and coming players to watch this year.  

Another big match to watch is Jeremy Dubin (JHU) vs. Mark Fallati (Swat).  This will be Fallati’s biggest test to date and if it’s indoors, Dubin can pull the upset.  I mentioned the advantage Dubin gets when he plays under the actual indoor lights, so this could throw my whole Fallati prediction up in the air.  Let’s also not forget to watch out for Michael Rosenvasser (CMU) vs. Aaron Carey (JHU).  The battle between two freshman of Hopkins vs. CMU that have a lot of expectations.  CMU is really hoping Rosenvasser makes a big run and salvages a tournament for the Tartans.  

Okay, it’s officially midnight so all the times I said “tomorrow,” i mean “today.”  I’m looking forward to not tweeting that much tomorrow as I watch fantasy football all day.  I’m in a big matchup with D3Northeast and I really need to beat him.  Anyways, that’s it.  ASouth, OUT.