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Wake Forest Tennis 2023-2024: Men #3

Rafi

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The Wake men kick off the dual match season with a home double header on Jan 18.

The Wake women are currently in Palm Springs playing a kick-off tournament. They will also start off the season at home on Jan 18 with a double header. That will be a busy day at the Wake Indoor!
 
Do we have any americans on the team or all they all from eastern europe?
 
Do we have any americans on the team or all they all from eastern europe?

The women's team has 10 players, 8 from the US (the other two from Cyprus and India).

The men's team has 19 players, 11 from the US. The others are from India, Canada, Cyprus, Croatia, Montenegro, Israel, Spain, and Germany. So two from Eastern Europe (really only 1 I think, because Gojo is unlikely to play).

It's a really cool distribution of players. Each team also has one player from Winston-Salem.
 
The men start play on Saturday. My guess at the lineup once the tough matches start is:

Botzer
Baadi
Melios
Rezi
Sid
Nava

Squire, Solomon, Maciag, Azcona, Dill (doubles) will play some.

Doubles is impossible to guess, but I'll go with:

Botzer/Squire
Melios/Baadi
Sid/Nava
 
The Wake men and women start their dual match season tomorrow (Saturday, January 18th) at home. Matches will start at 10 am and basically run all day at the Wake Indoor.
 
It looks like Squire played at #2 and #3(behind Melios) singles, and did well. I assume he would drop back to #4 when Baadi plays(I assume he's injured). Nava played at #4. If he plays well, then we should have a pretty strong lineup.

Also Gojo officially not coming back, to the surprise of few.
 
It looks like Squire played at #2 and #3(behind Melios) singles, and did well. I assume he would drop back to #4 when Baadi plays(I assume he's injured). Nava played at #4. If he plays well, then we should have a pretty strong lineup.

Also Gojo officially not coming back, to the surprise of few.

Baadi isn’t injured, he is still not cleared by the NCAA. And Maciag is not yet cleared by the ACC to play this year after transferring from Duke.

Squire looks the part - 6’5” with a big serve. Melios and Sid played really well.

Botzer won a very close match, holding off two match points and winning on an ace. Botzer has such an atypical game. Some opponents figure out strategies that work, and others never do.

If Baadi is cleared, I think he’ll play 2.
 
Doesn’t seem like one of our stronger teams. Maybe Melios or Sid will take a big step forward.

Thanks for creating a new thread btw.
 
Doesn’t seem like one of our stronger teams. Maybe Melios or Sid will take a big step forward.

Thanks for creating a new thread btw.

Agreed. They are missing that one player at the top that gives them an edge. For the last few years that was Petros. Before that it was Rubin and Bogaerts. Maybe Baadi or Squire could be that guy for us.
 
Baadi isn’t injured, he is still not cleared by the NCAA. And Maciag is not yet cleared by the ACC to play this year after transferring from Duke.

Squire looks the part - 6’5” with a big serve. Melios and Sid played really well.

Botzer won a very close match, holding off two match points and winning on an ace. Botzer has such an atypical game. Some opponents figure out strategies that work, and others never do.

If Baadi is cleared, I think he’ll play 2.

Both Baadi and Macaig are on the official roster so they must be optimistic they will join the team this spring.
 
Both Baadi and Macaig are on the official roster so they must be optimistic they will join the team this spring.

They would be on the roster either way, but I think they are pretty confident Baadi will be cleared.
 
Rafi, what's your best guess on whether baadi will be cleared by the weekend? I would have thought that would have been locked and loaded long before now. Is it academics or related to pro tourneys?

While I don't think we are top 5 and maybe not top 10, the lineup of Botzer, Baadi, Melios, Squire, Nava/Banthia/Cungu especially if we can get some dubs. That lineup won't beat UNC, but it should be good enough to beat UVA and maybe finish top 8 nationally.
 
Rafi, what's your best guess on whether baadi will be cleared by the weekend? I would have thought that would have been locked and loaded long before now. Is it academics or related to pro tourneys?

While I don't think we are top 5 and maybe not top 10, the lineup of Botzer, Baadi, Melios, Squire, Nava/Banthia/Cungu especially if we can get some dubs. That lineup won't beat UNC, but it should be good enough to beat UVA and maybe finish top 8 nationally.

I just don't know regarding Baadi. As you note, it seems like issues would have been resolved a while ago. Baadi had a recruiting visit last spring, he played in the WS Open, and he was at the matches last weekend. So he has been around quite a bit. I wouldn't have guessed Baadi would have qualifying issues.

I agree that with Baadi we are a top 10 team.
 
1) never underestimate the inefficiency of the NCAA
2) in Bresky we trust. We're not a top-10 team without Baadi. With him we might not be top 10 right now. Hopefully we can improve throughout the year and peak when it matters. The schedule is really tough - we'll take some losses early - just too many teams on there that are just as talented as we are and probably more of a fully formed team.
 
I heard Baadi will be cleared to play in ITA Kickoff tomorrow. Mcaig is not and will sit out this year and have 3 years left as per NCAA. Freshman Juan Lopez De Azcona will redshirt.
 
I heard Baadi will be cleared to play in ITA Kickoff tomorrow. Mcaig is not and will sit out this year and have 3 years left as per NCAA. Freshman Juan Lopez De Azcona will redshirt.

Good info. Lopez De Azcona was in a boot last weekend.

As IMR indicated, Kentucky is good. Their #1 is a freshman from Canada. He was rated the #1 recruit from Canada, and I believe Baadi was #3.
 
Close one for the Deacs tonight, but they win against ETSU. Wake had match points at one and two doubles and ended up losing both to lose the doubles point. Doubles was really rough last year too, but singles was so good we could compensate.

In singles Squire and Nava looked dominant. When Nava plays aggressive and confident, he looks really good. Melios also played well. Baadi looked a little shaky - he lost several leads - but he’ll be a good player for us. Rrezi was down 1-5 in the third set and won 6 straight to win the match. He’s clutch.

Bar would have made a big difference in this one, especially in doubles.
 
Why didn't Bar play?

I think he may have been resting up for the match against U.K. I think he’ll play Saturday.

Should be a good match at 5 pm at the Wake indoor.
 
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