Indoors Reaction Roundtable

D3 Northeast

Continuing with our Indoors coverage, we have convened an emergency meeting of the infamous Blogger round table to get a wide range of perspectives on one of the better tournaments in recent memory. Without further ado, the 2019 Indoors Reaction Roundtable!

Summarize 2019 Indoors in 5 word or fewer?

AS: Best Tournament Outside of NCAAs

NE: PUMP IT INTO MY VEINS

AVZ: Not a true national championship

CHB: I’m a sucker for indoors

RegNE/C: I’ve more questions than answers.

RegAS: Anyone is beatable

newCentral: CMU down but not out.

DIIIWest: Emory/Chicago Final whole way

NewRegional: Surprising

What is your biggest takeaway from this weekend’s action?

AS: The UAA is going to be a battle this year. A tweet can basically sum this up.

As we currently stand, the order is Chicago/Emory/Wash U/Brandeis/Case Western/CMU, which is not what we expected going into the weekend. But, CMU came two points away from beating Wash U, who almost beat Chicago, who obviously beat Emory. This gives hope to the bottom teams (CMU in particular), and gives us reason to believe that the UAA is going to be a bloodbath this year. UAA/NESCAC matchups will be extremely key this year given the fact that these teams are probably going to beat up on each other throughout the year.

NE: CMU finishing 7th and the Pool-C implications. We all knew their QF match with Wash U was going to be a battle, and was pretty much a 50-50 tossup. We were obviously correct as that match came down to three different 3rd set tiebreaks. However, none of us thought the Tartans would end up falling to Case the following day. In hindsight it’s easy to make the argument that we shouldn’t have overlooked the Spartans, but given the absolute egg they laid the following day against GAC, it really makes you wonder what exactly happened this weekend! Luckily for the Tartans they play both Wash U and Case again later this season, but given that CMU now also has an indirect loss PP and Brandeis, #BreakingPlaid has put themselves behind the eightball before March even begins.

AVZ: My biggest takeaway from the whole thing is Chicago still has the deepest team in the country. They won the final because their freshmen were better at 5 and 6 than Emory. Josh Xu was a big time stud and I could see him playing as high as 4 by year end. A bit surprising to see the slow start for the doubles team of Kerrigan/Kumar and somewhat bad loss from Yuan/Raclin, but all three doubles spots are forces at their position and could pose a lot of issues for teams trying to avoid being swept. I don’t think they are as strong at the top as they have been in years past graduating so many top guys, but they could lean on strong doubles and plenty of depth to pull off some big wins like they did this past weekend.

CHB: As a West region enthusiast, I can’t be happy with a 1-5 weekend. Statistically, that’s the worst the region possibly could have done. That being said, PP’s win over GAC is absolutely massive. I wasn’t riding high on the Hens after their loss to Brandeis at home. Considering their prior indoor struggles, I had them pegged for an 8th place finish. The win over GAC was mildly impressive at first, but now they have a nice indirect win over Case. The loss to UAA competitor Brandeis will almost certainly keep them out of Pool C this year (is it ever too early to talk about Pool C?), but this will keep them in the top 20. Not a lot of positives for Whitman. As you would expect, everyone other than Kirsh looked a little overmatched after moving up four places in the lineup. They got some good experience, however, as they head home to attempt to defend the NWC title.

RegNE/C: In the interest of coming at this from a different angle (and shamelessly working my teams into it) I am going to say my biggest takeaway is that GAC is much better than anticipated. Many people (i.e. me and no one else) were floating around the idea that maybe an improved Carleton team could challenge GAC for the MIAC, but GAC showed this weekend that they’re more likely to be battling top 10 teams than a mid 30s opponent. Coach Valentini has a proven track record when it comes to doubles and development, and given the performances of the Gusties this weekend in both doubles and lower lineup singles, the table is set for GAC to continue to stay very much relevant. Given the right bracket, I could see this team making the Elite 8 once again, which they are surely dying to do after the bad taste Whitman left in their mouths last spring.

RegAS: If this weekend is any indication of how the rest of the season goes, this just shows me that we could be in for a wild ride come postseason time. No #1 seed will be safe at NCAAs and when you throw the NESCAC teams into the mix you have a field that’s going to be wide open. Depending on regions, we could maybe see Case or GAC as a 2 or 3 seed that no one wants to see on the other side of the draw, especially if those teams get home court advantage. There are probably 12-16 teams that could potentially make the Elite 8 and it should be a roller coaster rest of the season all the way to the very end.

DIIIWest: This could finally be Chicago’s year. We’ve been saying it every season and year in and year out, Chicago continues to have the deepest and most talented team, but it seems that like at this year’s indoors, they may have finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together. They may have lost Chua and Liu, but the freshman pickups that have already made a name for themselves at the bottom of the lineup is what this team may need when Nationals come around in May. I don’t know about you, but it seems that this might be the tightest knit, deepest, most talented, and hungriest Chicago team we’ve seen in recent seasons.  

NewRegional: Case is still a really tough team to play. NE mentioned this in a tweet, but it’s really impressive how year in, year out, Case comes to battle at Indoors. Yes, the Spartans lost to GAC 5-0 to close the weekend, but they pushed Chicago and upset CMU. A win over GAC would have made things really interesting, but with matches against CMU, Trinity (TX), Kenyon, Amherst, Wash U, Chicago, AND UAAs to go, there’s a lot of time for the Spartans to make some noise in the Pool C race.

Who/what made or broke your DraftKings team?

AS: Daniel Levine broke my DraftKings team. I finished 6th overall in the standings (tied), which isn’t bad at all, but that is below my standards for Draftkings as I have won the past two years amongst the bloggers. Levine dropped in 7 points at his exorbitant cost which is upsetting. Sucks that he wasn’t able to finish his last match, where I believe he would have won and gotten me 10 points. However, I can’t complain too much as I got a significant contribution from Clark Safran at $500 to the tune of 9 points. Crazy stuff!

NE: I was very happy with my team before the tournament, and remain so afterwards. I had the same exact team as noted gambling expert/addict AVZ, which always makes me think I’m doing something right, and we finished T-2nd with more than 60 points. No one performer stood out, but I will thank my Eagles for netting me a combined 44 points. Check out my full DraftKings recap for more here, but a huge shoutout needs to be given to Winging It, who led our competition wire-to-wire and set a new tournament record with 68 points (and a couple guys who were just a game or two away from winning their sunday matches too).

AVZ: I fell for the Whitman love from CHB and picked Rajul. After watching him play a bit, it hurt my love of tennis as much as watching Shek Alla and Wade Heerboth play a few years back. But the guy did get enough points for me to take 2nd. I heavily leaned on the Emory squad because their first two matches were too easy so I was getting 10 points no matter what from them. Mora was a big value pick and Josh Xu was dirty, but most of the teams at the top had him.

CHB: My own homerism, picking Chikkalingaiah. I figured the junior would get good value with a singles and doubles win, but the competition turned out to be too stiff. Overall, my team was pretty good, but I bet with my heart instead of my head.

RegNE/C: Not knowing much about most of the players and doing absolutely zero research.

RegAS: The frosh Aaron Umen was one player I expected more out of. While I should have never bet that much money on a freshman at 3 singles, I went against my better judgement and ended up with a dud. I should’ve picked Joshua Xu for $500 cheaper.

newCentral: Telling D3NE that Joshua Xu should be priced higher.

DIIIWest: It didn’t help that I picked Rex Serituk (who for all I know didn’t even make the trip out to Cleveland), but my worst pick statistically and value wise had to have been Jed Kronenberg. I spent a good chunk of change on this sophomore – going 1-5 didn’t help my cause. We all know he’ll rebound nicely from this poor weekend once the outdoor swing comes around, but man, going 1-5 and not being close in one doubles pro set is not what the Hens were looking for out of their top man.

NewRegional: With only one player in double figures, I really didn’t give myself that much of a chance. Kozlowski only played singles in one match which hurt, but I knew that was a possibility going in. Probably should have realized that everyone was picking Joshua Xu for a reason, but, ya know, things happen.

What individual player or random thing impressed you the most this weekend?

AS: ETHAN HILLIS. The Amherst (who?) transfer came out firing this weekend, making quick work of Levine, Kerrigan, and Jed Kronenberg in a gauntlet of #1 singles players that should scare most players. Well, Hillis didn’t drop a set to any of them and could be making his case for #1 player in the country. Who else is going to beat him? Looks like a scenery change was the best for the sophomore and that’s a storyline in itself.

NE: While many things impressed me, I can’t say enough good things about the live stats and live streaming put on by both Case and the ITA. I know that running an event like this is a team effort, so credit to everybody involved because it was a fantastic weekend of tennis that was 100% free to enjoy. I can’t overstate enough just how much we all enjoyed it, and I have to imagine that goes for every tennis fan out there. Great job!

AVZ: Hillis stood out based off the fact that he played the toughest competition, but Nick Aney and Josh Xu were big reasons why their teams had such a good tournament. Gotta shout out Case for continuing to develop 1 and 2 stars into legit doubles players as well as grind it out singles guys. That is undeniable.

CHB: Personally, I was most pleasantly surprised by Gustavus. After losing Al Houni and Entwistle, this year figured to be a rebuilding year for the Golden Gusties, but they reloaded in a big way with Player of the Tournament (my designation) Nick Aney. The loss to PP stings, but a 2-1 weekend was more than I would’ve expected.

RegNE/C: I’ll keep it simple: Wash U’s Daniel Li winning the 3rd set tiebreak against Boppana (CMU) to clinch the match in dramatic fashion. Li is the real deal and this won’t be his last big clinch. If he gets tight in that breaker, think about how different the entire rest of the weekend looks (for many teams).

RegAS: Ethan Hillis was certainly impressive. He had a great fall finishing 5th at fall nattys and came back still on fire this spring with convincing wins at the top of the Bear’s lineup. On top of that he won 2 out of 3 doubles matches this weekend. Going 5 for 6 at 1 singles and 3 doubles against some of the best teams in the country ain’t bad at all, so hats off to Mr. Hillis.

newCentral: CREAM, so I knew all my central players would ball out (but special considerations to the performances of: Hillis, Aney, Xu, and Yuan). The thing that surprised me the most this weekend were the live stats and live stream from the Cleveland Racket Club. D3 stats and live streams aren’t known for being the most reliable, but a fantastic job this weekend – cheers to the Audio/Visual team this weekend.

DIIIWest: Jonathan Jemison. Flying a bit under the radar this week, the Eagle had himself quite the weekend, going 5-1 (winning all three singles matches). Jemison continues to be an absolute rock for Emory, and despite an impressive weekend, I don’t even think he played his best tennis. His win over Kerrigan was impressive and his doubles alongside Bouchet makes them one of the better doubles teams in the country.

NewRegional:  Jeremy Yuan. Yes, DK owners of Yuan may have been hoping for a little bit more out of the second most expensive player, but don’t let this distract you from the fact that Yuan had a great weekend. After dropping doubles to Case and losing to Neves, Yuan turned it on in the finals, beating Jemison/Bouchet and then taking out Cassone in three sets. Doesn’t get much better than that

If you had to give an academy award to a moment from the weekend, it would be…

AS: Best Director goes to Chicago’s coach. As mentioned in the TRN article, he would have been flipping out in year’s past, but kudos to him for letting them play a little. Chicago was clearly prepared for battle this weekend from Day 1 (fighting off an initial home court punch from Case, beating Wash U in a tight match, beating Emory in general) and some of that praise deserves to go to the coach. So, hats off to the person I’d select as Best Director.

NE: Best actor award…

AVZ: Best villain (yes I know that’s not a real Oscar) has and always will go to Hayden Cassone. I was mostly watching the Kerrigan/Jemison match, but you could hear the guy taunting Kerrigan from a court away. Fortunately like in most movies, the villain went down to the hero Jeremy Yuan. Best Supporting Role goes to Cleveland and Case Western for doing a stand up job.

RegNE/C: Best costume design goes to Wash U. Always smart and sleek.  Overall, some tamer looks across the board than in years past.  

RegAS: Best Director goes to Case Western for their outstanding job hosting this tournament. Live stats and video on point. ‘Nough said.

newCentral: Best Cinematography: Nicholas Chua for the aforementioned tweet and screenshot (revealing a possible Anti-Ninan Agenda at Indoors).

DIIIWest: Best Picture: If a match is a “picture”, well we may have already seen the best picture days into the season and that was the Wash U/CMU match. I don’t recall any matches that have ever had THREE 7-6 in the third matches with absolute grinding and pounding from both sides. It was unfortunate that there had to be a loser in this match (you have to think the CMU loss to Case had to do with a little emotional scar tissue from this one), but talk about a match that will be hard to top.

NewRegional: Best D3 tennis blog: division3tennis.com. And it’s not even close 🙂

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