2020 Indoors Roundtable Recap

2020 Indoors Roundtable Recap

We’ve assembled the news team and are here to give you our final thoughts on Indoors before we turn our attention to upcoming spring breaks and move ahead with the rest of the spring season season. If you haven’t yet, check out our first Players of the Week and D3AS’ Studs and Duds. Later tonight, I’ll be back with a recap and some analysis of our DraftKings tournament and I don’t want to jinx it, but there’s even talk of getting the bloggers together again to create our first POWER RANKINGS of 2020! Once we do a Players of the Week and a Power Rankings in the same week, you know it’s really Blogging season. What topics from Indoors did we miss? Comment below and let us know what else you’d like discussed…

Your reaction to 2020 Indoors in 5 words or fewer?

NE: NCAAs are gonna be dope

RegNEC: Brandeis is a top-5 team.

newCentral: Pool C looking real UAA-y.

AS: I was bad at Draftkings

NewRegional: Best in a while?

AVZ: I just can’t quit you

What is your biggest takeaway(s) from Indoors?

RegNEC: I have two: 1. Love them or hate them, Emory is so impressive. The names change, but the program has a culture of winning, full stop. I’m sure someone will comment about their history of poor sportsmanship, and while the full Emory story can’t be told without acknowledging the more unsavory aspects, you also cannot discount how Coach Browning continues to find and develop guys that just know how to win. 2. With the same core, we knew Brandeis was going to be just as strong this year, but this weekend showed that they can beat anyone in the country. I’m 100% not predicting this, but you can’t say that a National Championship is out of the question. Probably most importantly from this weekend, Brandeis pushed Emory to the brink and likely proved to themselves that they are among the absolute best in D3. All that said, I do think that Deis will be slightly less dangerous outdoors.

AVZ: There are quite a few takeaways for me, but I will stay on brand and stick in my region. First of all, Jake Zalenski is the real deal. I think I haven’t been high on him, but he had quite a weekend. I think the win against Hopper is overlooked as he is a top 5 player in the country. Zalenski could be a guy that makes a deep run in May and potentially win the whole thing. Outside of that, the disappointment in Wash U is big. They have no real impact freshman and while Hillis is a stud, Neves isn’t as dominant as I expect. Hopefully BVDS is ok because Wash U doesn’t have the depth that we typically expect. 

NE: There are a bunch, but since other people are undoubtedly going to hit on Brandeis “New UAA”, I’m going to focus elsewhere. The Guru may be turning over in his cryogenic sleep chamber, but wow what a disappointing weekend from Wash U. As of now they appear to be a CLEAR 5th place in the UAA after getting smoked by Brandeis and then beaten soundly by Case as well. Now, you could argue the injury to Ben van der Sman played a big role in their lack of results this weekend, but the Bears don’t appear to be as strong at the bottom of their lineup as we once thought, and while we know Hillis and Neves are the real deal, pretty much all of the best teams in the country have really really good players at #1 and #2. Yes, Wash U should get better once/if BVDS comes back and they start grinding away outdoors, but after this weekend they are almost certainly destined for the #4 vs #5 QF matchup at UAAs and they are now in the midst of their biggest uphill battle to make NCAAs in as long as I can remember.  

AS: Obviously, everyone has to stop doubting Emory at Indoors. They’re winners. They fcking win. Everyone complains and complains about them (RegNEC alludes to this) but quite honestly they’ve gotten way better in the past couple of years outside of a few bad eggs. They bring in talent, but if you base it off of Tennis Recruiting, they aren’t bringing in more talent than other teams. So, hats off to an impressive performance from a team that always will bring their best. The same goes for Case Western as well. 

newCentral: I absolutely loved the inclusion of Brandeis in National Indoors and it made me rue the person who made it so the NESCAC can’t play dual matches that early. I would love to see some more NE teams, particularly the NESCAC ones, to shake up this UAA Spring Tournament. Also, yes we have to stop doubting Emory at Indoors RE: ASouth, but I think the bigger STOP DOUBTING US should be reserved for GAC at Indoors in Minnesota – they’re a whole different animal. 

What surprised you most throughout the tournament? 

AS: I was surprised by Brandeis. I didn’t think they would be that team that could continue their success. With a new coach, they certainly proved me wrong. I had immense skepticism that a newly successful team under a coach who really hasn’t had the high-level experience it normally takes to breakthrough would come into the first tournament of the year and do decently well in it. This team is clearly a top 10 team. Whether they are top 5 or not is a different story. But just the fact that we’re talking about Brandeis in the top 10 shows how things can certainly change. 

newCentral: Hopper going defeated in Singles, Kanam & Mabee going undefeated in Doubles, how one-sided Case vs. Kenyon ended up and how close the Brandeis/Emory semi was. 

NE: A few things, Chicago’s top doubles team going undefeated against Chopper (Case), Pareer (CMS) and Coraberg (Brandeis), Wash U on the struggle bus, and Jake Zalenski rolling to an undefeated singles weekend (he’s gotta be an NCAA favorite at this point even with his grinding style). Most of all, Emory winning the whole tournament with 3 unproven players at the bottom of its lineup. We knew the Eagles were going to be hit by graduation, but it’s not like Cassone really carried the team this weekend. Mora won all three of his singles matches, Esses won five of his six matches, Sverdlov won two of three singles matches including against CMS in the finals, Serituk went 3/3 in singles matches including MULTIPLE clinchers, and even Kenawi won 4 of his 6 matches, going undefeated in doubles with Esses. If Cassone is having a good day, this team all of a sudden goes from Tier 1B title contender to the overall favorite, and that surprised me. 

AVZ: The biggest surprise for me was the results of Hopper from Case. He quietly was on his way to going 0-3 down a break in the third set to Hillis. Now none of these players he played are weak (Parodi, Zalenski, and Hillis), but I had high expectations going in after such a strong Fall season. By no means are those expectations going to temper, but I want to see the second coming to CJ Krimbill carry this Case team to even higher heights. 

RegNEC: I really shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but I didn’t think Gustavus would win a match or even be that competitive in their first couple of rounds. The home courts probably don’t hurt, but the talent gap (as far as recruits goes) between GAC and their competition is not insignificant. The Gusties are consistently one of the best teams in the country at developing players, so again, I shouldn’t be surprised. I think I spent too much of the off-season trying to convince myself that Carleton had a shot to take down GAC this year. Looking back, that was pretty dumb!

Who are your winners from the weekend?

RegNEC: Emory, obviously. More specifically, Rex Serituk at #5 singles, who clinched both the semifinal against Brandeis and the final (with a weird, muted celebration) over CMS. The senior hasn’t seen much playing time over his career, despite making the ITA Regional final during his freshman fall before losing to Jemison (anyone know how JJ’s ITA record was?). Since, then his biggest claim to fame might have been during a match a few years ago, when a reader told us a story about him making line calls from the netpost during one of his teammates matches. During the match, his teammate allegedly made a terrible call, Rex overruled him, his teammate got mad at Rex, to which he responded, “don’t be a dick.” And on a personal note, back in 2017 when we did a D3 Fantasy Draft, I took freshman Rex as my second round pick. The next three guys chosen? Daniel Levine, Grant Urken, and David Liu. Maybe I can be the Knicks’ GM one day.

AS: Read my article

AVZ: Love that RegNEC said Emory. What a great take that is.  I think Indoors as a tournament was a winner. I would prefer that the NESCAC be involved, but CMS and Brandeis qualifying and making the trek is fantastic. Brandeis in particular as they are fairly new to the party. Would love to see other teams get the opportunity. Logistically it would be a challenge, but what if we expanded this to 16 teams?!? Now that would be an awesome event that isn’t all UAA teams. 

NE: Brandeis and Case. These teams known for their annual struggles against a more talented top of the conference look like they will have a great opportunity to pull off upsets throughout the year, and both have firmly established themselves as top-10 teams in my mind, with Brandeis edging closer to top-5. We’ll have our first Power Rankings later this week, and I’m really excited to see just how high some of our bloggers will be able to rank the Judges. You could make a real argument they deserve to be as high as #4 after this weekend… 

newCentral: Emory, the biggest winner obviously, but Case and Brandeis left with moral (and on paper) victories this weekend. Case and Brandeis are ready to shake up the UAA Pool C triumvirate of Emory, Wash U, and Chicago. Case impressed me enough to further ground my Elite Eight Pick for them while Brandeis reminded me why I felt so wronged by their NCAA snubbing last year. 

Who are your losers from the weekend? 

AVZ: Clearly the answer here is ASouth as his draftkings submission was pathetic to say the least. No one is a loser at Indoors. It is a made up national championship where not all teams attend, but it’s damn great tennis in February!

NewCentral: ASOUTH LOST TO ALL OF US!! #BeatASouth But his studs and duds article makes up for it. 

NewRegional: CMS’ 3-5 singles going 2-7 on the weekend. Meister picked up a nice win against Esses in the finals, but dropped three setters to Umen and Sachin Das. Freer beat Kanam in the first round but then lost to Yuan and Sverdlov, and Liu went 0-3. We started the year talking about how dominant CMS was going to be in singles, and while Parodi and Park went undefeated and Katzman went 2-1, I’m shocked that their 3-5 didn’t go at least .500. Yes it was indoors, yes it’s early in the season, but if you’re a team with National Championship aspirations, this was not a good weekend for the middle of the CMS singles lineup.

RegNEC: It’s harsh, but CMS. It’s not that big a deal to lose the final to Emory on its own, because the real prize isn’t until May anyway, but CMS almost seemed unbeatable with their top-to-bottom strength this year. That’s obviously not the case, and while some teams might relish the wake up call of a tough early season defeat, it could also negatively impact the confidence of a super talented team that’s been oh-so-close to winning it all but has a history of not being able to seal the deal. From a neutral viewer standpoint, I’m loving it, as it creates a very intriguing narrative for NCAAs and gives me hope that my previous fears of CMS cruising all year are not going to come to fruition. 

NE: CMS losing another Indoors final to Emory was rough, and Kenyon leaving the tournament winless isn’t great, but even though I’ve already hit on this my answer remains Wash U. They have been an NCAA fixture as long as I’ve been involved with the sport (more than a decade now) and have benefitted from some highly questionable NCAA decision making, I can’t wait to see how they get in this year. 

AS: Read my article

What is one other thing you want to make sure gets discussed?

NewRegional: Let’s talk about Chicago for a second. We’ve made it to the bottom of the article without really talking about the third place finisher and last year’s champ. It was an interesting tournament for the Maroons that started with a not-as-close-as-it-seemed 5-4 win over Kenyon. Chicago then lost a tough 5-4 match to CMS, and after going down 2-1 to Brandeis, they flexed in singles, taking 5 out of 6 to win 6-3. Guzhva went 3-0 and only lost 11 games the whole tournament. Yuan also went 3-0, and Das went 2-1 with his loss being a third set retirement after the match was decided. Chicago struggled at the top – Xu went 1-2 and Kerrigan went 0-3. Brandeis is getting the most hype after this tournament, and rightfully so, but to me, Chicago is still one of the favorites to win a natty chip.

AVZ: Emory and their on court demeanor, antics, and reputation. An inside source is telling us that something big happened in that championship match. Emory seems to always have a cloud that follows them each season and we as a blog don’t do a good enough job pointing that out. We are far more critical of Case when Emory should be spoken about in the same breath. Success can blind us from the bigger issues. 

newCentral: I’d like to see who the ITA considers their All-Indoors Team from the Weekend.

AS: I’d really like to know what Rex Serituk said to Liu at the end of the championship match.

RegNEC: Big big shoutout to Gustavus for once again putting on a first class event, at least from my vantage point. The live streaming worked great, and the tournament webpage was always quick to update with (mostly) accurate live scores and box scores soon after matches finished. I’m sure that it’s a huge production, but it seemed like the people behind the scenes (shoutout to CJ Siewert) did a great job and made it easy to follow. Also kudos to the ITA—their coverage on social media made the event feel just as legit and big as D1 indoors that took place last weekend. That hasn’t always been the case, so it’s great to see a step in the right direction!

NE: Exactly what RegNEC just said.