TCU Men's Tennis - 2020-2021

[Jared7]

Alastair Gray and Nick Chappell remain in Egypt - Ali has already won 2 qualie matches (1 and 3 over Shyla; 6-3, 4-6, 10-5 over Dzhavakian) and he'll face Arjun Kadhe tomorrow. Nick is already into the main draw (he's now ATP#433) and he'll face Dusty Boyer (ATP#590) in the first round.

Cam went to Astana in Kazhakstan and lost in the first round to Jordan Thompson earlier today 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 2-6.

 

[Jared7]

Ali Gray lost his last qualie match yesterday, so he didn't make the main draw at Sharm El Sheikh, but Nick Chappell (now at a CH of ATP#430) beat Dusty Boyer 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1 and will now face Yann Marti (Switzerland - ATP#1485) later today in the quarters. Nick also advanced to the quarters in doubles - teaming with Felix Corwin. This is Nick's hottest stretch of his career!

 

[Jared7]

Well, it was a hot stretch but Nick ended up losing in the quarters in both singles and doubles. But the good news is that there's yet another tourney at Sharm El Sheikh this week. Alastair is into the first round of the qualies later tonight, where he will play Yaraslav Shyla (Estonia - ATP#1030) yet again. Nick isn't scheduled as yet, but I'm guessing he's into the main draw.

Tomas Jirousek and Tadeas Paroulek have both traveled to Greece where they both lost in the early rounds last week. This week, they're both at Haraklion - Tomas will be playing Brazilian Mateus de Carvalho Cardoso Alves, who has a long name and is ranked ATP#603 (a career high) and Teddy lost to Italian Jacopo Berrettini 3 and 3 earlier today.

And Alex Rybakov and Reese Stalder will be at Fayetteville this week as well. Widow in the qualies and Rybo in the main draw if he made the trip.

 

[Jared7]

TCU's men's tennis team kicks off the 2021 Spring season today at Tulsa. The Frogs were picked 6th in the ITA preseason poll and are also favored to win the Big 12 by the Big 12 coaches. The preseason Top 10 are: (1) USC; (2); North Carolina; (3) Ohio State; (4) Michigan; (5) Stanford; (6) TCU; (6) Texas (tied); (8) NC State; (9) Florida; and (10) Georgia. We've already had two preseason matches against A&M (11th) and SMU, but today is the first official dual match of the season. It's just starting - you can follow along on twitter or at the Tulsa tennis site. Go Frogs!

 

[Jared7]

Bad sign. Tulsa takes the doubles point and now leads 1-0. Gray and Fomba won their match, but Paroulek/Jong and Martin/Jirousek both lost. The singles line-up today will be Alastair Gray, Luc Fomba, Sander Jong, Tomas Jirousek, Tadeas Paroulek and Juan Martin. Tulsa has already played one match and lost to Oklahoma State 0-7.

 

[Jared7]

Better play in singles as Gray (6-4), Jong (6-2), Jirousek (6-2) and Martin (6-4) take their first sets. So we have a good shot to pull this out despite the doubles loss.

Sander Jong takes his match and it's 1-all!

Juan Martin gets his first ever dual singles W as a Frog and TCU takes a 2-1 lead!

Alastair Gray gets a ranked win and the Frogs now lead 3-1!

All 3 remaining matches are into the 3rd set and all are currently even on serve. We just need one of them to take the first dual match of the year.

 

[Jared7]

Teddy Paroulek comes from a set down to take his match and the #6 Frogs win 4-1! This is a solid W for our first official dual match because, no matter their ranking, Tulsa is always a tough out for us up there. The doubles loss is concerning though (as usual)...

Next up is the ITA Kickoff Weekend starting on Saturday in which the Frogs will be hosting a regional at the tennis center. We'll play Denver in the first round and will face either OU or Wake Forest (both exceptionally tough teams) in the 2nd round. If we win both rounds, we'll advance to the Indoor Nationals 2 weeks later.

 

[ftwfrog]

Whoa? We’re #6?

Any chance we allow fans to watch in FTW this year?

 

[Jared7]

Whoa? We’re #6?

Any chance we allow fans to watch in FTW this year?

Yes, we are #6 in the ITA preseason poll (tied with the Longhorns), but that's got to be taken with a grain of salt because (1) for the first few weeks, it's just a poll and the actual computer rankings won't come out until a month or so from now (after the Indoor Nationals) when enough matches will have been played to be statistically meaningful; and (2) no one's really been playing much tennis lately. We're also #1 in the Big12 Coaches Poll but that's probably because we didn't lose anyone (although Kruger didn't play today and I'm not sure why) and Texas and Baylor did. To maintain those rankings, we'll need to not only make the Indoor Nationals but do well there.

The whole Top 25 is:

1. USC (on our schedule)
2. North Carolina
3. Ohio State
4. Michigan
5. Stanford (on our schedule)
6. TCU
6. Texas (on our schedule)
8. N.C. State
9. Florida (on our schedule)
10. Georgia
11. A&M (on our schedule)
12. Wake Forest (possibly on our schedule)
13. Tennessee
14. Oklahoma State (on our schedule)
15. Baylor (on our schedule)
16. UCF
17. Mississippi (on our schedule)
18. UCLA
19. Columbia
20. South Carolina
21. Pepperdine (on our schedule)
22. Virginia
23. Duke
24. Tech (on our schedule)
25. Kentucky

The schedule will be Tulsa (away), Denver (home); either OU or Wake Forest (home), Baylor (away), Mississippi State (away), Mississippi (away), the National Indoors in Champaign-Urbana (hopefully), Tyler J.C. (home), Arizona State (home), Pepperdine (away), USC (away), Stanford (away), Florida (away), USF (away), SMU (home), A&M (away), Tech (home), Texas (away), Oklahoma State (home), OU (home), Tech (away), Baylor (home) and then (hopefully) the post-season (the Big12 tourney will be in Waco). To me, that looks positively brutal; especially with all the away matches.

Denver is coached by former Frog Ricardo Rubio, who teamed with Roditi during his freshman year and is one of Devin Bowen's best friends. And I think Eduardo Nava still plays for Wake. There are a lot of unknowns this year, though, especially whether the pandemic will ease, matches won't get cancelled (again) or whether they'll allow spectators.

 

[Jared7]

It's been awhile since we've updated the results of our professional Frogs, who have been traveling the world seeking tennis tournaments in which they can play.

Cam Norrie is now ranked at ATP#74 and his most recent action was at Delray Beach last week where he made the semis before losing to Sebastian Korda. he had W's against Tiafoe, Mannarino and Aragone in the early rounds.

Nick Chappell is now ranked at ATP#406 and he was most recently active in December at two tourneys in Santo Domingo where he made two consecutive semis, losing to former Gator Oliver Crawford the first week and Nick Hardt the 2nd week.

Alex Rybakov is now ATP#473 and he was also at Santo Domingo last month, making the finals the first week (winning 4 rounds; losing to Crawford) and the Round of 16 the following week. Now, he is in Antalya (Turkey) where he is already into the main draw in singles and will team with Nuno Borges (formerly at Mississippi State) in doubles tomorrow morning.

Gerardo Lopez Villasenor (o Jerry Lopez si prefiere ingles) is ATP#552 and he has been most recently active in Spain at Madrid, where he lost in the 2nd round to Alvaro Lopez San Martin, and Torello, where he lost in the 1st round to Luca Nadi.

Reese Stalder is ranked at ATP#1034 and he was also in Santo Domingo in December where he lost to Nick Chappell in the 2nd round the first week and made the 3rd qualie round the second week.

The current team has 6 ranked players in the preseason ITA rankings. In singles, Alastair Gray is 21st, Luc Fomba is 47th, Sander Jong is 123rd and Jacob Fearnley is 125th. In doubles, Gray/Fearnley are 15th; Jong/Paroulek are 24th; and Fomba/Kruger are 53rd.

 

[Longfrog]

Any idea why Fearnley didn't play? Gonna take everything we've got to beat Wake.

 

[Jared7]

In Antalya, Rybo and Nuno Borges won their first rounder in doubles this morning 4-6, 6-4, 10-4 and have advanced to the quarters. In singles, Rybo will open tomorrow against Billy Harris (U.K.), one of the team that Nuno and Alex just beat, in the Round of 32.

I don't know why Fearnley (or Kruger, Kurzban or Roldan) didn't play against Tulsa. My guess is that Roditi wants to develop depth given the tough schedule and that he specifically wanted to give Martin a chance to get his first dual match W. He's been injured for nearly 2 years and he's been with the Frogs for nearly 4 years, and he got the win. if not injured, I expect to see Jake and Bertus in future line-ups. We'll see.

Also, the seeding in the ITA Regional projects us to play Wake, but we'll first have to get through Denver and they'll have to beat OU.

 

[Jared7]

If you want to read a deep analysis of the Frogs this season, crackedracquets provides it: https://www.crackedracquets.com/college-contenders-tcu-201210/. They conducted their own poll and also picked us 6th. The bottom line is that they think we're very talented but young and that we'll have a good shot at the Big12 championship, but might fall short to Baylor. They do note that we were perhaps the hottest team in the nation at the time of the COVID cancellation (with 9 straight W's - now 10) and that any Roditi-coached team is not to be discounted; especially one that didn't lose any players.

They are VERY high on Baylor though - picking them 3rd and projecting them to win the Big12. The Bears lost Jenson Brooksby to the pros and lost their coach - Brian Boland - due to a scandal. Benedict Brooksby, of course, had originally committed to TCU, but then got wined and dined while competing in a Waco tourney and ultimately decided to go there. He then got injured and didn't play much last year. but Baylor got 3 graduate transfers - 2 from a very good Duke team (Nick Stachowiak and Spencer Furman) and Charlie Broom from Dartmouth. With Frantzen, Dickerson, Lah, Soto and Bass all back, they do indeed look tough. Their new interim coach - Michael Woodson - will have a lot of talent and depth to choose from in assembling his line-up. We're scheduled to play them twice.

The big news surrounding the ITA Regionals is that a bunch of teams are dropping out due to COVID and replacements are being found.

And the first Big12 Tennis Player of the Week is...Alastair Gray!

 

[Jared7]

The ITA Kickoff Weekend starts tomorrow (Saturday in Ft. Worth). It has been downsized this year; instead of 15 regional sites and 60 teams, they'll only have 7 regionals and 28 teams this year. The men's regional sites are UNC, TCU, Ohio State, NC State, Texas, USC and Michigan. Illinois will get an automatic berth into the Nationals because they're hosting, but everyone else will need to win 2 matches to earn a ticket to Champaign-Urbana. 18 of the ITA Top 25 teams are in, but there have been several COVID-related withdrawals, including Oklahoma State, Tech and UNLV. But because of the downsizing, there have been ample #'s of teams willing to be replacements because they had previously been in it until the downsizing. Because of the long lay-off, I expect many "upsets." We need to beat Denver and either Wake or OU to advance.

Rybo lost in singles at Antalya to Billy Harris 4 and 4. He and Nuno are still in the doubles though.

Cracked Racquets is inaugurating a Top 25 Coaches Poll and it is scheduled to be released today (shortly).

 

[Jared7]

And the new Coaches Poll is:

1. North Carolina
2. USC
3. Ohio State
4. Stanford
5. TCU
6. Florida
7. Michigan
8. A&M (they just beat Mississippi State)
9. Texas
10. Baylor
10. (tied) N.C State

16 teams got votes - others were Wake, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma State. Only UNC and USC got first place votes. They're going to release this every 2 weeks throughout the season.

 

[Jared7]

The ITA Kickoff Weekend is well underway, with 3 Regionals starting yesterday. All 3 #1 seeds advanced to their finals today - Texas, NC State and Ohio State. And Tennessee, Florida and Virginia also advanced. So, it'll be Texas-Florida, Tennessee-NC State and Virginia-Ohio State in those regional finals today.

The other 5 Regionals start today. So far, the big upset is Baylor blanking Michigan at Ann Arbor 4-0. Michigan was a #1 seed and ranked 4th in the nation and is best on the indoor courts. In our Regional, OU currently leads Wake 1-0, but the Deacs, led by Eduardo Nava at #1 are fighting back in the singles. The TCU-Denver match is scheduled for 2:00, but it won't start until OU and Wake are done. It's indoors (bleah!).

OU now up 2-0.

At Antalya, Rybo and Nuno Borges made it to the finals in doubles but lost early this morning 6-2, 4-6, 7-10.

Wow - OU bagels Wake 4-0 and advances to the Ft. Worth final. Early Big12 strength this season. TCU-Denver up next!

 

[Jared7]

They've started! The doubles line-up is Gray/Fomba; Paroulek/Jong; and Martin/Kruger against Ricardo Rubio's Denver team. (Ex-Frog Rubio was flashing a Frog sign). You can follow along on twitter or sidearmstats.

Kruger/Martin lost 4-6 and the other two matches are both into tie-breaks. The doubles woes continue...

 

[Longfrog]

Looks like Wake was missing their top 3 players. Great opportunity but we seem to be struggling in doubles again.

 

[Jared7]

Yes!! We take both breakers and win the doubles point!! TCU 1 Denver 0.

The singles line-up is (1) Gray; (2) Fomba; (3) Jong; (4) Kruger; (5) Martin and (6) Kurzban. No Fearnley, Paroulek (although he played doubles) or Jirousek. A&M is in a tight one with Pepperdine.

 

[Pharm Frog]

Frogs win doubles point