ASouth’s UAA Recap – Studs and Duds

D3AtlanticSouth

I have two favorite tournaments every year, and they will be the same every year.  These tournaments are of course, Indoors, and the UAA Tournament. Every year, I try and do something a little extra special for both of these tournaments as well as an extra Studs and Duds Recap that everyone loves to pore over and debate. This year’s tournament didn’t bring that much drama, but it certainly brought some surprises and it also brought some drama in the back draw, which is always fun. Let me also take this time to say that my quest for the Blog Perfect Week did fail on Friday, which was the biggest disappointment of mine from this past week and probably the whole season. Next year, I will have to go for the Blog Perfect Week once again and hope my luck falls into place on the second try. Now, for your studs and duds of the UAA Tournament.

Stud – Chicago, obviously

Of course I am going to start off congratulating the Maroons for what is their first UAA Championship in history!

Shoutout to the team for listening to me and getting some ice cream after their win also. Maroons can have fun too! Chicago won this championship on the backbone of their strong doubles play, but also, they just have a murderer’s row of singles players in the top/middle of the lineup that is very hard for many teams to compete against. Except GAC, apparently. Chicago showed their strength and I will give Coach Tee some credit – he messed with his doubles lineups once again, featuring Kerrigan/Kumar back at the top, and came away with some really impressive doubles performances. Individual things be damned, because I’ll take a UAA Title over most things. I will point out that this lineup featured 9 players in it, which is NCAA eligible, so that is another win for Tee as well. If/when David Liu comes back, he will potentially knock Peter Leung from the singles lineup and the lineup will still be eligible whether he does or doesn’t play doubles. Good work!

Dud – Erik Kerrigan’s Singles Weekend

As good as the Maroons and Kerrigan were in doubles (two big wins over CMU and Emory #1 doubles teams), Kerrigan came away from the singles portion of UAAs with a lot of questions. He came out flat-footed against Umberto Setter of NYU and got blitzed int he first set before finding his legs, and winning the match in a super tiebreaker. Daniel Levine made quick work of him in the semifinals and then he inexplicably lost to Hayden Cassone, playing #1 because of a Jemison injury, after winning the first set 6-0. Kerrigan seems to have bouts of lack of focus throughout matches, and this is something that Chicago simply cannot have come NCAAs.

Stud – The UAA Banquet and CMU Tennis Dance Moves

https://twitter.com/cmutennis/status/989668174000984064

Outside of winning the tournament there is nothing better than this tweet from CMU. Rage on! Shoutout to the UAA DJ blasting some tunes.

Stud – Rochester’s Wild Ride

After 7 years of toiling in the UAA 8th place spot, Rochester came into the tournament with the feeling that they could upset the Violets if it were to come down to the last match. And, that they did, in epic fashion. Rochester went down in doubles, but fought hard to win two middle matches and split at both #5 and #6. They needed both three setters to win the damn thing, which will be their last match of the year. Not to mention, they were down 4-1 in the third at #6 singles too! Want to see some heart? Look at these tweets.

Congratulations to Rochester for taking 7th place with an epic duel with NYU. There’s no documented video of match point, but I hope that the Rochester guy celebrated before the handshake. Cheers, Coach Belletto.

EDIT: There is a video!!!

https://www.facebook.com/RochesterVarsityTennis/videos/1453720638065707/

Notice how after the celebration he goes over to the NYU player who has fallen over with cramps on the other side. Sportsmanship can be shown despite celebration before handshake.

Stud – Case Western Spunk

It’s a given now at this point – when you play Case Western, you’re going to get into a battle. CMU learned this in the first round against their hated rival and eeked out a 5-4 win to move onto the semifinals. Case is not close to the CMU talent level this year yet still made things scary first time out there. Case then dismantled NYU before taking on a Brandeis team that had been flying high basically all season. Despite going down in doubles to the always solid Judges, Case pulled out three 3 setters, including senior James Fojtasek winning what will probably be the final match of his career. Hats off to Case, they always bring the fire and they always bring their A+ effort no matter what match it is. I admire that about this program.

Dud – Case Western Spunk

However, not all is good for Case Western when it comes to their on-court antics. Multiple sources have told me that the Spartans were up to their old ways at UAAs, probably because they knew they were underdogs in two of their matches. We’re talking about things such as yelling “DOUBLE FAULT” when the opponents double fault, and other generally unsportsmanlike things that seem to come with the Case Western program. This seems to be a recurring theme and probably prompted an earlier season tweet such as this one:

Case is tough, and that is something to admire. But there’s a difference between tough and being total jackasses. And also, you can take this criticism and take the childish route by saying “who tf cares” or you can grow up. Your choice. And this is more than a player thing too, and you all know who I’m talking about.

Dud – Emory’s National Title Hopes

Let’s use this paragraph as some late-season motivation, why don’t we? Emory’s season has been pretty clean up until two weeks ago, when a dismantling by the Midd Panthers revealed some cracks in the foundation. Moving onto UAAs, those cracks seem to be getting bigger. Emory totally faltered against Chicago, losing matches from #2-6 singles (everyone was pushed up because Jemison was hurt from day before). Emory is a team that is known for their winning abilities when the goings get tough. But, they simply didn’t have enough to come close to a Chicago team that just lost to GAC a couple weeks ago. Do we have reason to worry? I think we do.

Studs – Daniel Levine, Bernardo Neves, and Luke Tsai

This trio of players proved their mettle against the best of the best this weekend in singles. Add them to Avengers Infinity War at this point. All three guys have become close to an automatic point against almost any team, which is downright incredible with where they are playing in the lineup. Neves has been especially impressive, throwing in wins against Downing and Josepher this tournament with style. Luke Tsai, well, continues to be a boss wherever he is in the lineup. There is really no one that I would bet against Tsai at #3 singles right now. Jedi mind tricks. And lastly, the man I have been touting as the GOAT, Daniel Levine of CMU rolled through this weekend losing just one set (Fojtasek, Kerrigan, Wu). Beast mode.

Stud – The Emory/Wash U Rivalry

We were treated to yet another 5-4 Emory/Wash U match this weekend, despite Wash U being ranked 10th overall and Emory being ranked in the top 3 last time we checked. There was a point in the day where CHB said in the group chat “Emory might actually lose,” and this was indeed the case. Wash U went down 2-1 in doubles and I think everyone thought the Bears they were done. But they never let the Eagles go without a fight, and took a quick match at #6 (Kroot is back) before edging out wins at #1 and 2 in three sets. The Bears hate Emory more than anything in the world, and we always get some great matches out of these guys. I’m happy to see that the Emory/Wash U rivalry is still alive and well.

Neutral – ASouth UAA Coverage

As I mentioned in the introduction of the article, I totally dropped the ball on my final UAA Finals Preview which in turn destroyed my perfect week. What a time to drop the ball! So, I apologize to all about that, because I am equally as devastated. What I am not devastated about, however, is calling the Emory/Wash U match almost to a tee other than the Kroot match at #6. Feels good to be validated a little bit somewhat, but anyways here we are. I also called a Chicago 7-2 win over CMU, where I really only got one match wrong where I picked Downing over my best friend, Nicolas Chua. Apologies, Nick. Anyways, I thought it was an OK weekend of coverage and I’m still smarting from missing that article, but overall I’ll live another day.

Stud – The Tournament Itself

I have to give a shoutout to all those who were involved in running the tournament this past weekend. Live stats were for the most part, good, and I saw that they were basically being outsourced to Pittsburgh which is really going above and beyond. The twitter accounts were on point, everything seemed to be planned smoothly despite the always dreaded site-sharing of both Men’s and Women’s draws. There were really barely any delays and absolutely no weather delays as well! Overall, this was run fantastically and we all got what we expected to get in terms of coverage. So, thank you @uaatennis and @cmutennis for a great weekend!

Final Thoughts

And with that, I will end the UAA Tournament Recap. I know there is plenty more to talk about, but I think I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Let’s move into the next conference tournament! ASouth, OUT.

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