An ASwizz Indoors Recap – Studs and Duds

D3AtlanticSouth

“You ain’t gotta go to work, work, work, work, work, work.” – Fifth Harmony (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)

And that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Instead of working, I’m writing this Indoors Studs and Duds preview that I write every year, which always seems to generate some hits on the interwebs at the very least. I see you Shaw Speer. While the rest of the team prepares for other matches, I normally think about an Indoors like a scorned lover, much like Ross on the Bachelor yesterday. #RossForBachelor2019. Okay enough pop culture references, ASouth. You have a lot of writing to do. And off we go, into a crowd favorite article and one that I personally love writing (no offense to season previews).

Oh and quick note, if you like our content, and feel like we’re doing an awesome job – help us out and donate to the site with the link on the top left of the page! Money goes to site maintenance and really just helps us keep more motivation for writing. Much love. Okay, starting off!

Stud – Mohanad Alhouni

It’s Mohanad’s bubble, we’re just all living in it. And that held true this weekend. Mohanad may not lose a match in singles this year after taking out the trio of Jemison, Levine, and Lipscomb. He’s #1 in the nation and is a beast at #1 spikes as well. Mohanad makes GAC dangerous against any team and even more dangerous given GAC’s general prowess in doubles. As we saw this weekend, the elder Alhouni is very much a huge part of GAC’s team and he could be my early frontrunner for MVP.

Stud – Impact Freshmen

One could go on and on about any of the freshmen that played this weekend. Jack Katzman of CMS arguably had the best one, winning all three of his singles and doubles matches against top competition. Katzman is going to be close to unstoppable at #2 singles for CMS, assuming he is just as effective outdoors as he was at indoors. Hayden Cassone (EU) made a huge statement this weekend as well, going 3-0 in singles and teaming with Jemison to go 2-1 in doubles. One of the players he beat, Jeremy Yuan of Chicago, had a 2-1 weekend in both singles and doubles coming off his fall ITA success. This big 3 are going to be top players in DIII for years to come.

Let’s not forget about some others tho – Ray Boppana of CMU comes off a 2-1 weekend in singles where we upped Erik Kerrigan in a close match. Alejandro Rodriguez of Chicago showed he will definitely hold his own at #5 singles. The Wash U freshmen (van der Sman, Li, Takabatake) all notched key wins in Wash U’s solid weekend. Freshmen have been even more important in the current DIII landscape and Indoors was no different.

Dud – Trinity TX

Hard to find many reasons for hope in Trinity TX’s results this weekend in what could be a very down season for the Tigers. This was not something that was expected given the history behind Trinity’s program, but most programs will have to go through their down years. Trinity got blanked by CMS, lost big to Redlands, and lost in a quick 5-2 decision to a CMU team that had just finished their match the day before a mere 6-7 hours before. Trinity TX is featured in the Stag Hen tournament later in March and this year will be more about the young Tigers getting experience under their belt. Hopefully, they can shore up their doubles to a place where they can be competitive within the top 15 again. With Southwestern being down this year as well, we’re still looking at a tournament team but one that will not be a challenge to any of the #1 seeds.

Stud – Live Streaming

The live streaming offered by GAC was on point, as always. With 6 streamable courts and a system where every match is placed live on YouTube, GAC is the premiere place to hold Indoors every year. There was even a Draftkings submission that states “Indoors @ GAC Every Year” and I agree. Kudos to the GAC team for putting together a strong, viewable tournament for us DIII tennis enthusiasts. It allowed those in the group chat to re-connect with AVZ as he probably watched the most tennis of all of us this weekend. Hollaaaa!

Neutral – Live Stats

This may be an unfair ranking of live stats but seriously, one of my (and the Gurus) biggest pet peeves is wrong live stats. The end of the Chicago/CMU match was tarnished because live stats had CMU up 6-5 in the third instead of down 5-6, causing a bit of confusion for all those watching online. This happened in a couple of other matches as well. But alas, for the most part live stats were correct and I do realize they are a blessing to have. I’ll get off my high horse and thank GAC again for a great tournament.

Stud – Chicago’s Championship Dreams

People love to hype Chicago. And for good reason, as this top 10 team brings in top recruiting talent each and every year. This year is no different. I went into the Emory/Chicago match thinking that Emory would breeze, but the Maroons proved their worth in what was one of the best matches of the tournament in a 5-4 loss. People forget that this team is still missing David Liu, who played a strong #1 for them last year. The development of Luke Tsai has been key as well, giving Chicago another force at the top of the lineup. To me, Chicago is entrenched in the top 5 after this weekend until proven otherwise. We’ve been burned before, but this is the truth.

Dud – Redlands Pool C Dreams

Redlands will play a ton of matches this year, that’s for sure. But they needed to get a big win here at Indoors to prove to everyone that they belong in the Pool C discussion. Instead, they  came out flat as a pancake and got bageled by another Pool C team in Wash U in the first match of the tournament. With losses to Whitman and now Wash U by huge scores, Redlands is looking more pretender than contender for now.

Stud – CMS Joining Indoors

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Coach Settles and the guys have decided that Indoors is for them (with the new schedule at least). It was nice for CMS to throw a wrench into what normally is a UAA party (was going to use another word there). They almost came away with the trophy too, and it looks like they are hungry for revenge at some point.

Dud – CMUs Bottom of the Lineup

I marked the bottom of the lineup as a CMU X Factor and they are a big reason why CMU had a weekend to forget at Indoors. Shekar was solid at 4 but did lose a big match against Chicago where he was up big in the first and seemed to have control (vs. Yuan). Robert Levin lost a heart breaker to Chicago as well, but redeemed himself with a nice win against GAC. However at #6, CMU went 0-2 and they will probably be shuttling between players down there until they find the right combination. Where’s the freshman 4 star Tom Bickel? Who knows.

Stud – Post Match Handshakes

It should be noted that at the end of these matches, the teams decided to go with little league baseball style/NHL style team handshake lines. I love this purely because it allows teams to celebrate with their teammates immediately after a win without too much hubbub from all those really classy gentlemen that began this sport and don’t like any of us milenials showing disrespect to the game with our c’mons and our fist pumps and court storms. Millenials ruined boring tennis celebrations.

Stud – Officiating

WHAT!! I am naming officiating a stud simply because they were on top of their shit throughout the tournament. I saw a good amount of overrules, lets called, and mostly roaming umpires. We didn’t have many disagreements between players that were that noteworthy and that speaks to the strength of the refs this weekend. Nice job keeping a bunch of hot headed pre-adults in check.

Stud – Draftkings

Seriously, not to be that guy, but Draftkings is fun. We got over 50+ submissions this year, which is a record for the Draftkings competition! There’s something exciting about having a player from 4 different teams and calculating out who might win and who might not. Congrats to Greg Janssen (who?) for winning it this year, and congrats to me for being best of the bloggers for the second year running. Me saying I’m the best of the bloggers is kinda like when I compare my crypto profile against USD instead of against BTC. Cryptoheads will understand. To the moon!

Dud – Regional ASouth’s Draftkings Team

Seriously, this dude has come in close to last or last both years he played. Not very good. And he has the nerve to tweet this. 

Stud – GUSTIE PRIDE

Everyone knows about GAC’s home court advantage. And well.. IF YOU DON’T KNOW, NOW YOU KNOW. (explicit content warning, cursing and stuff happens in rap videos)

GAC came out flat against the defending champions, going down 2-1 and dropping 5 singles first sets. Some were doubting that GAC was really any good. Then, something happened. GAC split on four matches and Alhouni was doing the damn thing. The crowd was absolutely hyped and it showed. I’ve never seen a team THAT pumped up by their crowd. It’s almost like they gained 1 whole UTR point on every court simply because of the atmosphere. GAC is a force this year and if they host someone at NCAAs, that team better watch out (Chicago).

Neutral – Thoughts on Emory, CMS, Chicago, Wash U

None of these teams did anything this weekend that we didn’t already seem to know. Emory and CMS validated that they are national title contenders, which we knew. Chicago validated that they certainly could be one at the end of the year. Wash U showed us that they can absolutely play with the big boys and on the right day, say, NCAA Elite 8, they could knock off a top team in a surprising fashion. All four teams come out of the weekend feeling good or at least alright about themselves and their seasons go forward.

Stud – Niko Parodi, and other fantastic Individual Performances

I would be remiss to mention some of the other studs of the tournament as well. Niko Parodi won all 3 of his singles matches, including a beatdown of Jonathan Jemison of Emory. There were some shades of doubt given Parodi’s head-scratching loss to Krimbill of Redlands in ITAs, those are long gone now. The top dog is back and he is firmly entrenched in the top three players in the nation. Patrick Whaling of GAC also said cheers to the freaking weekend, going 3-0 against Emory/CMU/Redlands, which is pretty damn impressive. His win over Bouchet was one of the most surprising results of the tournament and it started the Gusties off on the right foot. Zack Ekstein also had a great weekend, winning two matches against Emory and CMU as well.  The sophomore Bernardo Neves showed why he loves Indoors once again, with three straight singles wins against a murderer’s row of #5 singles players, including Matthew Jacobs and Alejandro Rodriguez. Neves is looking like one of the best #5 singles players in the nation right now. Obviously, there were many other stellar performances, but these were the guys that really stood out to me. In addition to, of course…

Stud – The Andrew Harrington Comeback Story

A lot has been made, said, and judged about Andrew Harrington. The Emory transfer was much hyped coming his sophomore year, but never really lived up to those hyped expectations. He barely played at all last year. And when you’re about to become a senior, usually it’s pretty damn hard to get back in the lineup. Especially on Emory. Well, here we are and Andrew Harrington had the best weekend of any #5 singles player on the weekend. With wins over Derbani, Rodriguez, and Jacobs, with Jacobs being the last match clincher in the finals, Harrington has officially started his comeback story. Glad to see you back Andrew, FIGHT.

Stud – Johnny Wu, #1 Singles Player

We’ve been hard on Johnny Wu and his top dog legitimacy in the past. The ultimate grinder is one of the toughest players to play in DIII, but the knock on him is that he doesn’t have the weapons to compete with the top dogs throughout the country. Could this be the weekend where we start thinking differently about Johnny Wu? Wu notched wins over Lipscomb (Redlands) and Chua (Chicago) while falling to Parodi (arguably #2 player in country) in three tough sets. If you don’t know how big this could be for Wash U, you need to check yourself. Wu is a senior now, and his leadership qualities + improved play at #1 this year could make a massive difference for the Bears. Don’t sleep. Johnny Wu loves the bear market.

Dud – Chua’s Weekend

I put in my X Factors article that the clutch play of Chua would be an important point at Indoors, and it sure as hell was. Chua went 0-3 in singles on the weekend, with losses in three sets to Daniel Levine and Johnny Wu in close wins. Jemison defeated him in two sets in a close Emory win. I love the guy, but this definitely has to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Pairing with Ninan Kumar, Chua went 1-2 in doubles, so this weekend was one to forget for the likable senior. Here’s to a better rest of the season for the Chicago senior.

Stud – EMORY

I’ll leave you with this. Obviously, Emory has to be a stud for winning this whole tournament. They arguably got the worst draw of the tournament, playing the 5th place finisher, 3rd place finisher, and 2nd place finisher in consecutive matches. Playing at GAC when you are the defending national champions on a Friday night is something I do not envy. They handled every single one of the challenges thrown at them. A different player clinched every match. When Bouchet was down, someone else picked him up. When someone else went down, Bouchet clinched. They got contributions from every spot of the lineup and that’s what makes a championship team. Kudos to Emory for battling through a ridiculously tough Indoors for them. Three 5-4 wins in a row is straight up nice.

https://twitter.com/ITA_Tennis/status/967821180416724992

And with that, I leave you. Check me out with a Colby preview on Thursday, but way more importantly, there will be Power Rankings tomorrow! The bloggers are meeting up online tonight to go through our weekly power rankings. Should be a great time and I’m excited to premiere it for you all tomorrow. Shoutout to Wakanda. ASouth OUT.

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