Countdown to the 2018 New England ITA

Hello again, boys and girls. We’re smack in the middle of ITAs right now, with Emory and George Fox already dominating their respective regionals last weekend and a slew of tournaments beginning in the next few days. As I do every fall, I’m here to give you my ramblings on the best regional tournament in the country, the New England ITA. With players from top-10 schools like Middlebury, Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan, and top-20 contenders like Brandeis, Tufts and Bates, this draw is a perennial powerhouse full of both studs and depth. Let’s not forget that while the usual suspects should be primed for a good tournament, this is where the young guns often show their first glimpses of true potential. In the past five tournaments, we’ve had an unproven youngster come through and make at least the finals in every single one (Trinka, Chen, Farrell, Cuba, Finkelman). Most of those names are well established in NE lore at this point in their careers, and the last three are all top-4 seeds looking to reclaim some of their previous fall glory, but at one point they were all relative newbies and underclassmen dreaming of the grandest stage. Who will it be this year? CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DRAW

9 INITIAL THOUGHTS

#1 Both Grant Urken and Austin Barr are missing from this draw. Urken was sure to be the top overall seed, and Lil Barr was likely a top 5 seed as well. While the top of this draw is still very strong, missing two of the top-5 seeds certainly hurts.

#2 The region was hit harder by graduation than initially expected. Tercek, Wolfe, Roddy, Schlanger, de Quant, Grodecki, S. Raghavan, Chen, Rosen, Gupte, Ali, Glickman and more. Almost all those guys would have been seeded in this draw, opening the door for some young talent to emerge. Combined with those missing from the tournament, this draw appears as weak as it has been in years. That being said, it’s still stronger than any other ITA in the country.

#3 This draw seems to be top-heavy. However, as I said in the intro that never really holds in this tournament. All of the top eight seeds can always go and win this tournament, but unlike most years I am having a bit of trouble deciding which unseeded player is going to make a run.

#4 Even after a big weekend, Amherst’s freshmen are still down in the pecking order. Bessette only played singles against Skid last weekend, and Fung didn’t play against either Liberty League competitor. I thought we’d see more than one freshman playing for Herst this weekend, but Harris Foulkes will have to carry the torch in the singles.

#5 We’re going to learn a lot about Wesleyan this weekend. We know what we’re getting from #Fink, but after that a lot of Wesleyan’s season is going to be decided by just how good their freshmen are. We saw some solid but mediocre results last weekend, but this will be their first true test. Can Anker and Lillenthal hold seed? Can one of them pull off an upset and get to the quarters or beyond?

#6 Can Brandeis back up their strong performance at the Middlebury Invitational? The Judges left Midd two weeks ago with a finalist from the B and C singles flights, and winning the D singles along with BOTH doubles flights. The first signs at a big year for Deis last fall came from their excellent fall doubles play. This is an extremely positive trend for Coach Lamanna and his crew, and backing it up at ITAs would go a long way in convincing people that the Judges are a top-15 team this year. Even if Lamanna won’t be there this weekend, they may have a familiar face at the helm!

#7 Does playing at home actually benefit the Panthers? Last year we expected Midd to come out and own their ITA, but we heard some interesting stories about the guys going out during the weekend. When you’re on the road, you are in an unfamiliar setting and that can cause discomfort, so being able to sleep in your own bed and play on your courts sounds most welcome. However, it also enables you to be with your friends who are regular college students enjoying their well-deserved weekend. I’m very curious to see what happens with Midd at home this year.

#8 Is this going to be Boris Sorkin’s coming out party? Boris was filthy at the Midd Invite, not dropping more than two games in a set en route to the A-Flight singles title. Some of the bloggers have been touting this kid for a while, and I am expecting big things from the Jumbo sophomore. Winning at Midd is nice, but making a run at the ITA is an entirely different beast.

#9 Scott Altmeyer is getting some well-earned respect. Can he capitalize? Scotty Alts is seeded in both the singles and the doubles, the first time a Colby player has been since Carl and Vlad. He also had a good Midd Invite, making the semis and beating Farrell and Williamson (Skidmore freshman), and is locked in as the Mule’s top player right now. A good tournament from him (and Sumukh) would go a long way in convincing us that Colby is again ready to compete for a bid to NESCACs.

8 TOP SEEDS

No. 1 Lubo Cuba (Midd): The top seed for the second straight year, Cuba pulled out of the Middlebury Invite a couple weeks ago. He is one of the most talented players in the country and has the winning pedigree at this point. Look for a strong showing from the senior, if fully healthy, and he’s your odds-on favorite to win the tournament if he can stay focused.

No. 2 Sean Wei (Amherst): If Cuba has the most talent, then Sean Wei has the most swagger. As a freshman, the young Mammoth was the best player in the region for a while last spring. He played behind Ma last weekend, but that’s probably more of a look at how well Ma is playing than anything else. Look for some big energy from Wei this weekend.

No. 3 Noah Farrell (Midd): The most experienced player in the draw, Farrell is another Panther looking to earn his 2nd ITA singles title. Noah has a pretty favorable draw until the quarters, which is about all you can ask for in this tournament. We know he’s more than capable, even if he hasn’t really shown the same level of brilliance we saw from him as a sophomore.

No. 4 Andrew Finkelman (Wesleyan): D3ASW will be happy to know that #Fink is back as Wesleyan’s top dog this year, and the backboard should be as strong as ever. With a tough draw against Frelinghuysen and likely Cauneac in the 1st two rounds, Fink is going to have to earn each and every win this weekend.

No. 5 Kevin Ma (Amherst): As I said above, Ma actually played #1 ahead of Wei this past weekend when Amherst beat Skidmore, and ROLLED past JT Wynne 2&2. Kevin seemingly improved with every match last spring, and if he’s made a jump over the offseason then Amherst needs to be treated as much more than just an NCAA bubble team. K-Ma also has a tough draw, but if he gets out of the 1st round I like him to make at least the quarters.

No. 6 Boris Sorkin (Tufts): You all know I’ve been a Sorkin guy for a while. His walk and talk style of tennis is simply captivating, even if his somewhat choppy dialogue needs a little work. On the court, it’s going to be tough for me to pick against Boris this weekend.

No. 7 Tyler Barr (MIT): Big Barr is back and a senior to boot. With his little brother conspicuously absent from this match, look for Tyler to try and uphold the family name. He has a relatively tough draw with Biswas and Scotty Alt in his pod, but the Engineer is still the favorite to set up a blockbuster quarterfinal with Wei.

No. 8 Arturo Kam (Williams): The top Eph in this tournament is…Arturo Kam! BG and Sachin Raghavan have graduated, Lil Barr and Lil Rag are both not playing, and Kam appears to have jumped past senior-captain Deepak Indrakanti. Kam had some great summer results and I wouldnt be surprised at all to see him make a deep run here.

7 BEST 1ST-ROUND MATCHUPS

#9-16 Noah Lillenthal (Wesleyan) vs Harris Foulkes (Amherst). Battle of the freshmen here, highlighting what could be a proper rivalry as these two continue to improve and move up the lineup throughout their careers.

#5 Kevin Ma (Amherst) vs Sumukh Pathi (Colby). Super sophomores and projected #2’s for both schools, we could see this matchup again in the springtime. Ma certainly the favorite here, but tough 1st round matchup for our #5 seed.

#9-16 Deepak Indrakanti (Williams) vs Stanley Morris (Middlebury). Morris is fresh off his B-Flight win at Midd, meaning he probably the projected #5-6 in Midd’s lineup this year with a ceiling as high as #3. Deepak is also slotted to play in the middle of the Williams lineup this year, and will be the best opponent young Stanley has battled yet.

Adam Tzeng (Brandeis) vs Zach Bessette (Amherst). Couple of unseeded guys with a lot of talent here. Tzeng looked great in doubles at Midd, and won a round in the A-Flight singles. He could play anywhere between #1 and #5 for Deis this year. Bessette is one of a few Amherst seniors this year and is expected to lead the Mammoths on and off the court. Right now he is slotted in at #3 singles, but could end up lower depending on the freshmen. 2nd round doesn’t get easier for either guy as they will get the winner of the above Indrakanti/Morris matchup.

Adrien Roji (Wesleyan) vs Eliot Rosovsky (Bowdoin). Not a matchup of guys who are going to be top of the lineup this year, but two guys who will be expected to contribute in a big way. Both guys are probably projected top-5 in the lineup, even with minimal experience as sophomores (Roji got some last year, but basically none for Rosovsky). We could see this matchup again later in the spring.

#7 Tyler Barr (MIT) vs Ben Biswas (Tufts). Tough draw for Big Barr as he gets a Jumbo junior who is playing well. Benny made the semis of the A-Flight at Midd a couple weeks ago, and is looking to prove he belongs in the top portion of Tufts’ deep lineup. Barr (and MIT really) had a tough fall last year, so I’m sure the Ohio native will be looking to start his final year off with a bang.

#9-16 Oscar Yang (Bowdoin) vs Calvin Chung (Williams). Talented and unproven youngsters always make for fireworks. Yang is Bowdoin’s top recruit this year, while Chung was a doubles specialist during his freshman campaign last spring. Yang is projected to slot a little higher in the lineup than Chung, but I would be at least a little surprised if the Eph sophomore isn’t in the starting singles lineup this spring. Given Urken’s absence and all of Bowdoin’s graduation, Yang and Jiang appear to be Bowdoin’s best chance to earn a rare Conor Smith smile this weekend.

6 BEST NAMES FROM UNRANKED SCHOOLS

As much as #Fink is still a thing, and as many times as I’m going to misspell Frelinghuysen this year (seriously, i say that name out loud in a stern voice every single time I type it, and it just gets better and better), it’s time to give some love to the unranked schools.

Guilherme Barbosa – Nichols/Junior. 1st team all conference last year and a winnable 1st round match. Yes, I envision him wearing a big old cap with a feather like Geoffry Rush in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Hippolyte Bonnet – West NE/Junior. The Golden Bear has the extremely unenviable task of playing Boris Sorkin in the 1st round, but on the bright side he can probably curse a bit in French and get away with it. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Amazonian royalty

Court Honda – Springfield/Senior. The man with a perfect tennis-related first name would also be a joy to have in any class where the professor calls role. Anyone in the market for a roomy four-door hatchback with ample seating?

Javier Esteban de Celis – Wheaton/Freshman. A third Spaniard, Coach Pandian appears to be starting an army. If only he could be playing doubles with Jorge Aguirre Martinez, it would be a contender for the most characters in a doubles pairing.

Bass Lin & Maximo Lawlor – Babson/Freshmen. It is one of the most significant bummers of my lifetime that these two are not playing doubles together. Maximo and Bass sounds like a delightful procedural cop show about two policemen who bridge the gap between their policing styles and their cultures. Five seasons on CBS at least.

5 VALUE PLAYS FOR ALL YOUR DIII DFS

Alex Cauneac – MIT/Senior. Yes, Cauneac had a down year in 2017-2018, but we all know what the Engineer is capable of. My guy was a bonafide #1 player on a top 25 team in the country, and at his best could/can beat absolutely anybody in the country. He gets a solid first round matchup against Trinity’s #3 from last year, and a 2nd round date with #Fink, so it’s not like his draw his a cakewalk, but an unseeded guy who has the capability to make it to Sunday remains intriguing.

Harris Foulkes – Amherst/Freshman. One of Amherst’s trio of 4-star recruits, Foulkes is the only one in this tournament. He has an unenviable draw, playing fellow freshman Noal Lillenthal in the first round, but I think he can win that match and set up a big time 3rd rounder with Arturo Kam. One new guy always seems to make a deep run at this tournament, for Foulkes’ sake why not Harris?

Jayson Fung – Amherst/Junior. This one fits into the Cauneac pile of lottery ticket, except I actually really like his draw. He will be favored in his first match against Lookwhy, then gets Alex Taylor in the 2nd round. Taylor can smoke the ball, but Fung has consistently played above him in the lineup during their careers. If he can get to the 3rd round, he’ll likely get Cuba, which is undoubtedly a tall task, but he’s also getting Cuba early on a Saturday morning, which history says is one of the better times to go against him.

Carl Grant – Tufts/Sophomore. Grant is a name not many of you might be familiar with, but you will be after this year. He had a nice first year, overshadowed by Boris and honestly lots of the other drama going on in Medford. He played B-Flight at Midd two weeks ago and won two round before falling to Coramutla in a super breaker. He played as high as #2 for Tufts at the end of last year, and I expect him to compete in the middle of the lineup this year. He draws Patel from Bowdoin who is also competing for the middle of the lineup, and the winner will have a tough matchup with either Sumukh Pathi (projected Colby #2) or Kevin Ma, but Grant is somebody who could surprise you and would be going for the bare minimum in your daily fantasy games. He could be the most famous Norwegian in your life since Henrik Kristoffersen.

Pieter Wernink – Bates/Freshman. One of Middlebury’s biggest surprises, Wernink made the finals of the A-Flight beating Wynne (projected Skid #1) in straight sets, and Biswas (projected Tufts #2-4) in a super. Yes, he fell hard to Sorkin in the finals, but so did everybody else in that tournament. I thought Bates was going to have a tough time at the top of their lineup given Rosen’s departure, but they do always seem to re-load at the top (Stein, Bettles, Crampton, Berg, Planche, Rosen) so I don’t know why I was expecting anything different. Pieter has Lawnor in the 1st round and Jerry Jiang (projected Bowdoin #2-3) in the 2nd round. While that’s not an easy road, for an unseeded player with a high upside that’s more than enough reason to keep an eye on the Bobcat.

4 PLAYERS WHO SHOULD BE ON UPSET ALERT

I’ll try to talk about guys I haven’t really mentioned a ton so far in this section. It would be easy to just pick four guys from the best 1st round section above, but here are four OTHER guys that should be on upset alert for Day 1.

#1 Lubo Cuba – Midd/Senior. He’s the number one seed, so it’s not like his draw is SUPER tough, but both de Mendiola and/or Vohra could present a tricky 2nd round for #Lube. He has bowed out early in some fall tournaments over the past two years, and his mysterious withdrawal from the Midd Invite two weeks ago suggests that there could be some sort of undisclosed injury as well. Unlikely that he falls on Day 1, but he still needs to be careful & focused.

#4 Andrew Finkelman – Wesleyan/Sophmore. I actually like Das Fink to make a fairly deep run in this tournament, but you can’t deny that the man has a tough route. We have yet to see anything from Frelinghuysen, but the Eph’s top recruit is listed as a part of their top doubles team so we know he must have some firepower. That’s probably an ideal matchup for a wall like Finkelman, but if Peter comes out hot you never know. If he gets through hist 1st round matchup, Fink will likely have Cauneac and Jerry Jiang in the next couple rounds. No easy matches for the #4 seed.

#8 Arturo Kam – Williams/Sophomore. Similar to Fink last year, I see Mr. Kam announcing himself to the DIII world in this tournament. That being said, Isaac Gorelick has yet to lose during his freshman fall (C-Flight champ at Midd), then a matchup with either the big hitting Larry Zhao or the super steady Josh Quijano (projected Bates #1/2). After that, some extremely talented young folks stand in the way of the quarters like Lillenthal, Foulkes and/or even Nikhil Das. All of those three guys are projected to play much higher in their respective lineups than Kam did last year. If he survives the early rounds, look for the man with the flowing locks to have a real shot at winning the whole thing.

#9-16 Alex Taylor – Williams/Junior. Taylor was a seed in last year’s tournament, ended up starting the year at #5, and didn’t finish the year in the singles lineup at all. A-Tay is a great doubles player and a really good kid, so I hope he protects his seed, but I don’t like the look of a potential 2nd round matchup with Jayson Fung.

3 THOUGHTS ON THE DOUBLES BRACKET

-NEW TEAMS! If you were expecting any consistency in team from last spring to now, you’ll be shocked by this draw. There is only one team from the end of the year’s doubles rankings that is playing in this draw (shoutout to the top team from Colby). I talked about graduation in my nine initial thoughts, but it wasn’t just top singles players. Schlanger, Tercek, Rosen, Eusebio, Wolfe, and Grodecki, de Quant, and Glickman were all a part of top-15 doubles teams. This year could be a wild doubles draw, and will be our first real look at the team chemistry between possible top pairs for national title contenders.

-The top two teams are the favorites for a reason. Although this particular doubles draw is just as much about who is hot at the right time as the talent of the teams, you’d be foolish not to have the top two seeds as the odds-on favorites to take home the hardware. Fung and Bessette didn’t play together much last year, but they were EXCELLENT as a duo two years ago. Tzeng and Kogan won the A-Flight at Middlebury beating the projected #1 teams from Midd, Tufts and Bates along the way. It’s tough to have many results at this point in the season, but we saw the Judges have an EXCELLENT doubles fall last year and it led to a great spring. Perhaps Coach Lamanna has put something in the water in Waltham.

-The lack of Bowdoin and Williams doubles studs is new & different. These two teams have been doubles juggernauts over the past 3+ years, and while both schools’ top teams earned a seed, both are comprised of an established #2 doubles players with somebody without starting experience. Taylor certainly has the power, but I’m excited to see what Frelinghuysen can bring to their partnership. On the other hand, Jiang was a part of one of the most solid #2 doubles teams of all time during his pairing with Wolfe. Now he will be mentoring Larry Wang, while guys with more experience like Patel and Zhao are also paired up with freshmen. We know Urken and Lil’ Barr aren’t playing this weekend, but this is our first look at what are sure to be revamped doubles teams this year.

2 PREDICTED DOUBLES CHAMPIONS

Zach Bessette and Jayson Fung (Amherst). I came so close to picking Brandeis, I really did. I had them typed out. Both have fairly easy routes to the quarterfinals, both will have to pickup some good wins afterwards in order to be crowned champions. But, I have a full year of results that showed Zach/Jayson to be one of the best doubles teams in the country. Now with more than another year of experience under their belts, what’s standing in their way?

1 PREDICTED SINGLES CHAMPION

Boris Sorkin (Tufts). I toyed with the idea of taking Arturo Kam, Sean Wei, and even #FINK, but I’m going to ride or die with Young Boris. As I have said multiple times, I think you could make a strong argument for taking any of the top-8 seeds, but I like guys who are playing their best right now as opposed to last year. Boris is arguably playing the absolute best tennis of his career right now, and would fit along the same trend lines as Farrell during his sophomore year if he were to run through this field as well. идти Boris!