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2018 NCAA National Tennis Championship Thread

Not much rest for our guys. Singles starts today.
Gojo plays tonight at 4:30.
Skander and Petros at 5:00

Bar/Petros start in the doubles tomorrow.
 
CreamyGoodness said:
Proud of my Deacs. My first ever Wake Tennis match was a National Championship in the middle of one of the most electric crowds I've seen at a Wake sporting event in a looong time.

Our teams energy is infectious and all seem to have pretty cool personalities. I was a big fan of the team starting WAKE FOREST chants during crunch time. Petros was unstoppable, Bar was as clutch as possible. Overall an awesome experience.
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Agreed. So much fun. Petros' personality reminds me a lot of Noah Rubin - he really seems to love the college/team game and atmosphere. So stoic until he randomly gets jacked up and gets the crowd involved. Can't wait to watch him pummel guys next year (and in the individuals for the next few days).

Side note, Wake fans show up when we have a good team to cheer for. See: soccer Deacs, Tennis, baseball regionals, and the bowl games of the last two years.
 
saltydeac said:
Losing Skander and Christian. Still leaves a crazy good team with great chance to repeat if have some guys like Zlob, NAv, gadijev, cungu, Yulav or any of the other young guns step up. Essentially already have 2 studly double teams and 3 studly singles with Gojo, Petros and Bar returning and lots of competition for the final 3 spots.

Guessing we have never repeated as natty champs at anything??
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Field Hockey, 2002, 2003, 2004
 
Approximately 89 or 90 Wake Tennis played Ohio State at their house. The atmosphere indoors was very rowdy. Wake lost. In a key match the fans were spitting onto the Wake Player.
 
MysteryMen said:
One of the things that some of the more recent fans probably don't realize is that Bresky literally built the Wake program up from the bottom of the ACC. We had decent success under Zinn, but a bunch of key guys were graduating in his last year and he didn't really have anyone lined up to replace them--probably a big reason why he left for Penn State.

The team Bresky inherited his first year easily could have gone 0 for the ACC--he only really had four players who even had a shot at winning an ACC singles match and we were eking out 4-3 wins against teams like Boston College that don't even give scholarships. But he got more out of those guys than I think even they could have imagined.

He turned Amogh Prabhakar, a guy who couldn't get into the lineup at all as a freshman or sophomore under Zinn, into a guy who won almost automatically at No. 3 singles as a junior and later went on to be ranked in the top 40 in the country. In his second year ,he took the same top four guys who had finished 3-8 in the ACC a year before, plus a couple of his freshman recruits at 5 and 6, all the way to the ACC Tournament Final. And he just kept building. Two years later, Wake made the Sweet 16; two years after that, the quarterfinals; and now, a national championship.

We're the national champions now because Tony was willing to work harder than almost any coach in the country--whether recruiting, practicing, selling the program to donors, etc.--but more importantly because he's an amazing coach--arguably the best in the country--who's able to get the best out of his players. We're lucky to have him
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Sounds a lot like Clawson. We have some really good coaches and it is so sad that basketball has Manning. Just an example of going for a name rather doing your homework and finding a young guy with energy and talent. Maybe next time?
 
Lohengrin said:
Should go to show the unbelievers how critically important having a top flight coach is in any sport.
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And this is an individual sport where the coach has far less control over what happens once play begins.
 
socaldeac said:
Approximately 89 or 90 Wake Tennis played Ohio State at their house. The atmosphere indoors was very rowdy. Wake lost. In a key match the fans were spitting onto the Wake Player.
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That's ok. The Wake crowd more than got OSU back for that by what we did to their goalie during the 2007 National Championship game. We didn't even have to spit.
 
lokisapocalypse said:
That's awesome. I know it's a non-revenue sport but I love tennis so this is super cool.

What are the odds the Deacon Shop sells some championship gear even though it's tennis?
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They would sell a lot of it if were like the cool gear the men were wearing as opposed to the normal deacon shop gear.
 
Not sure how messing with line-ups is viewed in college tennis world, but I will credit the OSU coach for how they bumped their ranked and usual #4 and #5 player down to the 5/6 slots to insure you win those 2 matches. If you know your 6th horse is weak and almost a certain loss you might as well slide a couple down to guarantee 2 Ws and really only risking one slot @ the 4. The guy they put in the 4 slot hadn't played in their last couple of matches and actually gave Bar a run. Thankfully all ended well, but a really good strategy when you think about it. Assuming it is considered ethical and ok in the tennis coaching world.

"Here are expected line-ups for Deacs vs. Buckeyes with early predictions for tonight's matches:

Doubles:
#1 - #21 Gojo/Skander vs. Joyce/Wolf - see a fairly easy W as OSU's #1 has lost their last 2 matches. Granted against the #1 and #29 teams, but this OSU team is not ranked and Gojo/Skander are playing great and clearly a top team coming off an easy W against the #3 doubles team in the country. See a Deacs W of 6-2.
#2 - #35 Petros/Bar vs. #61 Torpegaard/McNally - OSU's duo lost to MSUs #38 ranked doubles team 6-3, but bounced back against UCLA's #16 team with a tiebreaker W. This one will be tight, but think Deacs pull off 7-5 if they finish as suspect #1 and #3 will end before this match is completed.
#3 - #46 Seraphim/Dempster vs. Mendez/Tubert - OSU's duo has won their last 2, but they have not seen a #3 doubles team like the Deacs are going to throw at them with a top ranking and on a roll. 6-3 Deacs

Singles:
#1 - #7Gojo vs. #6Torpegaard - Originally thought Gojo would win this one, but the Torp is coming off 3 set wins against the #1 and #2 ranked singles in back to back days. Gojo rolled over a #5 player 2 & 1, so really think this is a toss up and home crowd could be huge in this win. Unfortunately hard to bet against a player with 2 top Ws, so going OSU in 3 sets.
#2 - #4 Petros vs. #41 Wolf - Wolf has split the last couple of days with a loss vs. #23 of MSU but bounced back with W over #81 from UCLA. Petros beat Wolf in the fall in 3 sets, but Petros is on fire now and think he wins easily in 2 sets 2 &2.
#3 - #38 Skander vs. #92 McNally - McNally is coming a W over the #84 player and appeared to be on way to W yesterday vs. # 56. Another tough match, but think Skander bounces back from loss to #48 and wins in 3 sets although wouldn't be surprised if Skander takes in only 2.
#4 - Bar vs. #96 Seelig - Seelig is coming off 2 Ws including over #103 in 3 sets, so this is a tough match for Deacs and hard match to bounce back from. OSU in 2 sets.
#5 - Nav/Alan vs. #112 Joyce - tough match @ #5 with another ranked OSU player. Think OSU takes another one here in 2 sets to even the matches to 3 points a piece.
#6 - Seraphim vs. Hunter Tubert - Hunter is coming off 2 straight losses and think Christian is playing with tremendous confidence and wins easily in 2 sets.

So Deacs take the Natty with a 4-3 win. "
 
Incredible achievement for the students, team, and school. It just goes to show that we can compete and win at the highest levels! Congrats to all of those involved!
 
saltydeac said:
Not sure how messing with line-ups is viewed in college tennis world, but I will credit the OSU coach for how they bumped their ranked and usual #4 and #5 player down to the 5/6 slots to insure you win those 2 matches. If you know your 6th horse is weak and almost a certain loss you might as well slide a couple down to guarantee 2 Ws and really only risking one slot @ the 4. The guy they put in the 4 slot hadn't played in their last couple of matches and actually gave Bar a run. Thankfully all ended well, but a really good strategy when you think about it. Assuming it is considered ethical and ok in the tennis coaching world.

"Here are expected line-ups for Deacs vs. Buckeyes with early predictions for tonight's matches:

Doubles:
#1 - #21 Gojo/Skander vs. Joyce/Wolf - see a fairly easy W as OSU's #1 has lost their last 2 matches. Granted against the #1 and #29 teams, but this OSU team is not ranked and Gojo/Skander are playing great and clearly a top team coming off an easy W against the #3 doubles team in the country. See a Deacs W of 6-2.
#2 - #35 Petros/Bar vs. #61 Torpegaard/McNally - OSU's duo lost to MSUs #38 ranked doubles team 6-3, but bounced back against UCLA's #16 team with a tiebreaker W. This one will be tight, but think Deacs pull off 7-5 if they finish as suspect #1 and #3 will end before this match is completed.
#3 - #46 Seraphim/Dempster vs. Mendez/Tubert - OSU's duo has won their last 2, but they have not seen a #3 doubles team like the Deacs are going to throw at them with a top ranking and on a roll. 6-3 Deacs

Singles:
#1 - #7Gojo vs. #6Torpegaard - Originally thought Gojo would win this one, but the Torp is coming off 3 set wins against the #1 and #2 ranked singles in back to back days. Gojo rolled over a #5 player 2 & 1, so really think this is a toss up and home crowd could be huge in this win. Unfortunately hard to bet against a player with 2 top Ws, so going OSU in 3 sets.
#2 - #4 Petros vs. #41 Wolf - Wolf has split the last couple of days with a loss vs. #23 of MSU but bounced back with W over #81 from UCLA. Petros beat Wolf in the fall in 3 sets, but Petros is on fire now and think he wins easily in 2 sets 2 &2.
#3 - #38 Skander vs. #92 McNally - McNally is coming a W over the #84 player and appeared to be on way to W yesterday vs. # 56. Another tough match, but think Skander bounces back from loss to #48 and wins in 3 sets although wouldn't be surprised if Skander takes in only 2.
#4 - Bar vs. #96 Seelig - Seelig is coming off 2 Ws including over #103 in 3 sets, so this is a tough match for Deacs and hard match to bounce back from. OSU in 2 sets.
#5 - Nav/Alan vs. #112 Joyce - tough match @ #5 with another ranked OSU player. Think OSU takes another one here in 2 sets to even the matches to 3 points a piece.
#6 - Seraphim vs. Hunter Tubert - Hunter is coming off 2 straight losses and think Christian is playing with tremendous confidence and wins easily in 2 sets.

So Deacs take the Natty with a 4-3 win. "
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I thought I read somewhere that there were rules in place to prevent too much manipulation of the lineups so a team couldn't throw out junk players against the other team's best players and put their best players against the weaker players from the other team. Am I making this up?
 
Noah Rubin is playing Fabio Fognini today in Geneva "not before 6PM" if anyone is interested. Fognini is ranked 19 in the world and recently gave Nadal a run for his money in Rome.
 
MysteryMen said:
The cool thing about our nattys is that we've won them in five different sports.

Also: a selected list of schools that we have more nattys than:

Baylor
Boston College
Clemson (we have THREE TIMES as many nattys as Clemson!)
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Louisville
Miami
Mizzou
NC State
South Carolina
Vandy
Washington
Wazzu

The whole list is here (though it doesn't list schools that haven't won any): http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/Overall.pdf
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Baseball, golf, tennis, soccer and what other sport?
 
women's field hockey x3 I believe is what I read here or somewhere else
 
CharlotteDeac1 said:
women's field hockey x3 I believe is what I read here or somewhere else
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We were a dynasty until my class, which included a future Olympian, fucked it all up!

But for serious, field hockey is weird because there are only so many programs in the country and the tournament is small.
 
Re: next year, I would guess Gojo goes pro.

If Petros and Bar both stay then we should be in good shape. Nava and Cungu can be solid 4-6 players, and hopefully Gadjiev or Zlob can fill in the other spot. My guess is that the freshman coming in Efstathiou could play the 3 if he has a good development over the summer.

We will probably add another guy via transfer or overseas like we did last year too.
 
wakephan09 said:
We were a dynasty until my class, which included a future Olympian, fucked it all up!

But for serious, field hockey is weird because there are only so many programs in the country and the tournament is small.
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and it's just an awful sport to watch
 
MysteryMen said:
One of the things that some of the more recent fans probably don't realize is that Bresky literally built the Wake program up from the bottom of the ACC. We had decent success under Zinn, but a bunch of key guys were graduating in his last year and he didn't really have anyone lined up to replace them--probably a big reason why he left for Penn State.

The team Bresky inherited his first year easily could have gone 0 for the ACC--he only really had four players who even had a shot at winning an ACC singles match and we were eking out 4-3 wins against teams like Boston College that don't even give scholarships. But he got more out of those guys than I think even they could have imagined.

He turned Amogh Prabhakar, a guy who couldn't get into the lineup at all as a freshman or sophomore under Zinn, into a guy who won almost automatically at No. 3 singles as a junior and later went on to be ranked in the top 40 in the country. In his second year ,he took the same top four guys who had finished 3-8 in the ACC a year before, plus a couple of his freshman recruits at 5 and 6, all the way to the ACC Tournament Final. And he just kept building. Two years later, Wake made the Sweet 16; two years after that, the quarterfinals; and now, a national championship.

We're the national champions now because Tony was willing to work harder than almost any coach in the country--whether recruiting, practicing, selling the program to donors, etc.--but more importantly because he's an amazing coach--arguably the best in the country--who's able to get the best out of his players. We're lucky to have him
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Good stuff.

Bresky has also had some incredibly good assistant coaches. I saw Brett Ross and Jeremy Feldman at the match last night, both wearing Wake gear. Current assistant coach, Chris Eaton, was a world class doubles coach before coming to Wake and I think his influence has been huge.

It was great to see all the other Wake athletes, coaches, and former players there supporting the team last night. Off the top of my head, Jen Hoover, Bobby Muuss, Ron Wellman, Nathan Hatch, Jen Averill, Dave Odom, David Hopkins, and Romain Bogaerts were just some of the Wake folks there. Throughout the year, the men's soccer and women's golf teams seemed to be the two teams that were at most of the men's tennis matches, so it's really cool to see Jen Kupcho's national championship followed up by the men's tennis national championship.
 
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