2020 Indoors: Studs & Duds

Indoors weekend, ladies and gentlemen. What a weekend it was. I went into the weekend thinking about these few things, all of which turned out to be mostly wrong.

  • CMS was far and away the best team in the country
  • Brandeis would lay an egg in their first chance to show that last season was a fluke
  • GAC would pull an upset off a reeling Wash U/Brandeis loser and get greater than 7th
  • Live Scoring would suck
  • The ITA would run a terrible twitter presence

As you can see, I had many wrong assumptions going into this tournament. The good thing is, since I was wrong by SO MUCH, we actually got a much better tournament than expected! And that’s always a good thing. You see, we play DIII Tennis and Blog about it for the people. The people want DIII Tennis! Speaking of Blog content, here you will find my annual Studs and Duds article recapping Indoors. Unfortunately, I missed the “ASwizz Indoors Preview” that outlined cool stuff that you wouldn’t normally read about in a regular preview, but I’ll have to make sure I do that for another tournament I guess. Let’s get straight to it so I can fulfill my other obligations for the Blog.

Stud – Rex Serituk, Emory Eagles

I’ll include Emory and Rex in the same little paragraph here because that’s kind of necessary. First off, this is the greatest non-celebration that I’ve seen in DIII Tennis. Coach Belletto of Linfield would be very happy about this. He hates celebrations.

Emory knows Indoor Nationals are great, but really have no bearing on how the end of the season is going to turn out. They’ve won too many Indoor Nationals to not know that at this point. So, I get the non-celebration, even if it’s from a player who’s never played in a big match before. I’ve always been a fan of Serituk (barring that questionable call late in the match, ha), so even the biggest Emory hater has to appreciate his journey and how he got here. As I mentioned earlier, Emory was not expected to win this tournament. I have advertised CMS (more to come) before this tournament, but they are clearly not as good as we thought they were. Again, it’s early in the year and it was Indoors. But, you have to give props to a young Emory team that came up and showed why they will always be the best in the business until Coach Browning decides he’d rather retire and appear on a reality show or something. Also, please note that Rafe Mosetick is now the assistant coach, which is just a great sentence in itself. 

Dud – CMS

A dud at 2nd place in a National Tournament away from home! C’mon, ASouth! I think Coach Settles and the boys would agree that this is far from what they wanted out of this tournament. Or, Coach Settles might spin it. He is good at that too. Overall, I don’t think this is really that big of a deal for the Stags. It’s the first match of the god damn year. However, the blogger inside me wants to overreact to this and say “CMS struggles in big matches” and things like that. The Stags will be fine. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not important to call out that theytotally underwhelmed compared to expectations here. 

Stud – Case Western’s On Court Performance

I think many of us knew that Case Western was going to be a force to be reckoned with this year. Adding the potential best player in the country as a freshman in James Hopper to an already good team will do that for you. Having a great coach in Coach Woj also works very heavily in your favor. I will NEVER doubt that Case will always be putting their work in and getting the most out of themselves. This is the way (shoutout Pedro Pascal). Anyways, a first round survival of Kenyon, putting a scare into CMS, and crushing a depleted Wash U team on the last day has to feel good. Case is in the driver’s seat for a postseason spot. I would not want to play this team in the playoffs. They will always bring fantastic doubles. They also bring a guy who can win his match against any team (Hopper). With a good mix of experience and youth, Case is one of the most dangerous on court teams out there. 

Dud – The Other Case Stuff

It’s not really my place to judge and I know that. But, a Case paragraph without a mention of the ongoing off-court situation with Aaron Umen is just bad reporting. Currently, Umen has pleaded not guilty to the charges of fraud that were leveled down on him last fall.  Here is the link to the developing story:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-area-man-admits-scamming-online-sneaker-traders-with/article_2d0504cc-3a8b-5c6e-94f5-88c3d442ccd5.html

If you look hard enough, you can find a ledger of all the different things going on in the case somewhere on the interwebs. Again, this is not my place to judge and this happens in pro sports all the way down to the DIII Tennis level (well now it does). But, the debate about whether or not Umen should be playing right now when he is involved in a federal court case is quite the debate. It looks like his alleged co-conspirator has already pleaded guilty. If this case does not go in his favor, one has to question the decision to let him keep playing with absolutely 0 consequences. That being said, has Case tennis ever been the symbol of integrity in DIII Tennis? I would happily invite Coach Todd to give his side at any point throughout the season. The offer is out there.

Stud – ITA and Live Stats

Let’s switch to a happier topic and one where I don’t alienate a team because of one guy. I don’t normally praise the ITA often. Actually, I usually hate on them hardcore. But, I must say, the effort behind Indoor Nationals this time around was fantastic. The positive impact of just having a great twitter presence cannot be understated. The bloggers were very eager to see what photos the @ITATennis handle would post next, what clinching points they’d post, and overall they did not disappoint. Additionally, there were minimal live stats errors outside the general human error part of the whole thing, which we can look past. In past years, some days were absolute total disasters. So, for the live stats to work for probably 98% of the time, is a huge win. Can’t believe I am saying this – but the ITA was a huge winner this weekend.

Dud – People that bet against GAC at Indoors

This actually happens more often than not. You look at the “talent” on GAC and you immediately think that they don’t belong. But every Indoors, they come out and upset one of the teams that is supposedly ranked way ahead of them. Did you know that they have won at least one match at Indoors in the past FIVE that they have participated in?  Yes, GAC has done that. They are a good enough team on their home courts and with the home crowd to upset an opponent that was wishing they were in the semifinals instead of playing the Saturday night match against them. Before, they used to play the Saturday 8:30AM match and I can tell you from experience that was BRUTAL. GAC wins at home and at Indoors. Doesn’t matter who they are. They’ll give you a battle.

Dud – My DraftKings team

Man, what a dismal performance from my Draftkings team this year. I scored 26 overall points after scoring almost 65 points last year in literally the same freaking format. Part of that was because there were a few matches that didn’t finish, but holy shit that’s bad. This score is definitely a testament to the effort I put into my team, but also a testament to how even the playing field was this year. D3Northeast will have more on this in a future article.

Stud – OSCAR WIKSTROM!?!?!

I know what you’re thinking. Who the heck is Oscar Wikstrom and where the FCK did he come from! Oscar Wikstrom is a freshman with a 10.32 UTR. He literally does not appear on Tennis Recruiting . Net in the Gustavus commit section for 2018. He won all three of his matches this weekend, beating Hassan Kenawi of Emory along the way. Oscar Wikstrom is the truth AND WE ARE ALL HERE FOR IT. We want OSKAR WIKSTROM BOBBLEHEADS! WE WANT OSKAR WIKSTROM DAY AT THE GAC BUBBLE! DOES HE HAVE HIS OWN LUNCH YET? NO? OKAY, GET HIM ONE. OSKAR WIKSTROM NATION IS HERE. Someone, please come up with a name for Wikstrom Nation (like the Bernie Bros or the YangGang or some shit like that). This man has his own fan club. 

Stud – Erik Kerrigan in Doubles

Kudos deserve to go out to Erik Kerrigan for his doubles performance this weekend. Teaming with Jeremy Yuan, the senior went 3-0 against a very tough schedule. Beating Kenyon, CMS, and Brandeis at the top spot in doubles is quite impressive. Kerrigan has been a great doubles player since his freshman year and that alone makes him super important to the Chicago lineup. I am glad that he’s found a good niche in doubles despite the departure of his old teammate, Ninan Kumar (quit the team). Looks like the man can play doubles with anyone.

Dud – Erik Kerrigan in Singles 

As good as the doubles portion was, the singles portion for Kerrigan went quite poorly. That’s 0-3 in his three singles matches despite moving down to the #2 singles spot. Against some of the best teams in the nation, Kerrigan could have changed a lot. He was up on Katzman in both sets (I believe) and proceeded to lose both. Even one of those sets could have been a nice boost for a team that barely lost to the Stags.  Kerrigan was also the only player to lose in singles to Brandeis. If Chicago wants to grab a national title this year, they’re going to need Kerrigan to be better when it’s just him on the court. 

Stud – Kenyon Fans on the Livestream

For those of you watching on the Youtube live stream (or whatever you call that thing. It’s Youtube to me), you probably saw a ton of Kenyon fans, young and old, rooting for the Lords. The #BENCHMOB is a real life thing and Kenyon does some of their best work from the bench. 

 

Enough said. 

Conclusion

Just in case you were wondering, we will have other Indoors Recaps coming out and I might even try to get myself on a podcast or something one of these days. But, I figured this would be a fun article to put out there to highlight some of the observations from the past weekend. I normally don’t name all the different studs and duds, because that would be a very long list. So, if you’re not on here, that doesn’t mean you haven’t been recognized, good or bad. So, lucky you if you were straight trash this weekend and didn’t make it to the article. I spared you. ASouth, OUT

5 thoughts on “2020 Indoors: Studs & Duds

  1. Rodrigo B

    There’s no doubt that Emory is a great team and their coach has his guys ready to play the big matches. Since they are always on the biggest stages they are going to be judged and held to a different standard. However, I think action needs to be taken by the other teams to thwart this behavior that is part of the culture at Emory.

    I don’t think teams should start cheating when they play Emory but I do think Emory doesn’t deserve the respect of other teams.

    Maybe more codes can be implemented. Multiple codes or overrules throughout the season should result in suspension or fines to teams that continuously cross the line.

  2. Rodrigo B

    I think the call you brushed over was much more significant and needs to be addressed with more emphasis as it’s always been an issue It might have decided the outcome on the championship.

    1. Daniella

      D3Asouth will never expose any faults of his beloved Emory team, when they have been the paragon of bad calls, poor sportsmanship, and terrible calls. The bias is scathing. Glad your anonymous, Jeremy.

      1. D3AtlanticSouth

        This is 100% not true. I’ve called out Hayden Cassone many times in the past. I’ve called out others on the Emory team. I can find the articles for you in my free time.

        Since you know who i am, why in hell would I have an Emory bias? Makes 0 sense.

        Btw, it’s spelt “you’re.” But maybe they just overlook the details of things in San Fran these days, right?

    2. D3AtlanticSouth

      I didn’t agree with the call, hence why I called it out. I’ve called out Emory in the past and I frequently bash the antics of Hayden Cassone. I think it’s naive to just say that Emory cheats their way to titles. They clearly do something right.

      And you are naive if you think that there are other teams and players that have never hooked in their life. This is why a line judge has a job, is it not?

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