ITA wrap-up

Matt finished up at the ITA's 2-2 finishing 7th place. Yesterday Matt started the day with a very rough backdraw match versus Mike Greenberg of Kenyon. Normally one wouldn't expect to the 2008 NCAA III singles champion in the backdraw but that was Matt's opponent. As with his previous matches Matt started off smoking! He quickly went up 3-0 and had several break points to take a 4-0 lead. Unfortunately he wasn't able to convert any of the break points and Greenberg started clawing his way back into the match. Matt served for the 1st set at 5-3 but was broken after a long game. The rest of the 1st set was a battle with Greenberg prevailing 7-6. In the second set Greenberg broke early and held on winning a tight 7-6, 6-4 match.

Because of our flight schedule today we moved the 7th/8th place match to Saturday afternoon (originally was scheduled for Sunday morning). Matt finished the tournament with a very solid 6-3, 6-4 win over the #1 player from Vassar.

For Matt the tournament was bitter sweet. In all of his matches he was up a break in the 1st set and had break points to go up 4-0 (Trinity, Middlebury, and Kenyon). With the high heat and humidity winning the 1st set is a huge advantage. Honestly Matt played some of the best tennis in the DIII draw; unfortunately he was unable to maintain his high level of play through the middle parts of the first set. However the tournament was good for Matt in that he knows he can compete with the very best in DIII and he is excited for the spring.

Also Matt hasn't been at his best this fall. Earlier in the summer he torn a stomach muscle and has been playing in pain all fall. This is really evident on his overhead motions..he hasn't been able to serve close to 100% and his overhead is really tentative. We are hoping that an extended break from tennis will allow his stomach to naturally heal.

Tough day at the ITA's

This morning Matt squared off against Middlebury's Andy Peters in the 1st round of the ITA's. Matt started off the match where he left off yesterday...on fire! In fact I think the heat from Matt's smoking forehand raised the court temperature a good 15 degrees! The first part of the set was some of the best tennis I have seen Matt play. He was absolutely blistering the ball and went up 3-0 and had a break point to go up 4-0. However the Middlebury kept a level head and battled his way back into the match. Playing way behind the baseline the Middlebury player kept digging out one extra ball forcing Matt to continually come up with the goods. Unfortunately Matt couldn't keep up his blistering play and ended up losing 6-4, 6-2.

A bit of a disappointing loss for Matt. He played pretty well most of the match and was in control of the first set only to see it slip through his fingers. Doesn't get any easier for Matt tomorrow has he plays the #2 seed Michael Greenberg of Kenyon (he won the NCAA III singles title two years ago) who was upset in his first match of the tournament.

Play-in day at the ITA's

Today was play-in day at the ITA Small College Nationals. Basically each Small College "event" (NCAA III, NCAA II, NAIA, and JC) have a draw of 8 players. However the Pacific Northwest and Texas regions share a single tournament spot. The winners of these regions arrive a day early and play a winner-in match. Win the match and get into the final eight AND get to play three more matches. Lose and you are done.

Luckily, Matt has been in this situation before and was primed and ready for the pressure of the play-in match. Matt started the match in high gear. Early in the set he broke the Trinity player and raced out to a 3-0 lead. Matt was pounding deep, heavy balls from the backcourt dominating play and pushing his opponent around the court. Matt was able to stay up a break most of the way through the first set but the Trinity player was battling and playing better tennis. Midway through the 1st set he started serving and volleying which made it harder to Matt to get a groove on his returns. Matt served for the first set 5-3 but was broke. The Trinity player then had a pretty easy hold to even the match at 5-5. With Matt serving at 5-5 the Trinity player played three great points to go up 0-40. All the momentum was now on the Trinity side of the court. This is where Matt's experience really came through..he took his time between points and grinded out 6 straight points to hold serve. Really this was the turning point in the match. Matt seized the momentum and the Trinity player seemed to lose his focus. From 5-5 0-40 down Matt went on a tear to hold and break winning the first set 7-5. Second set was all Matt all the time. In fact Matt only lost 3 points in the 2nd set winning 6-0.

This puts Matt into the elite group of 8 and he is guaranteed three more matches. Tomorrow at 10:30am he plays Middlebury. As usual I'll post twitter updates on the blog...http://whitmantennis.blogspot.com

Also very hot and humid conditions today. Was over 80 degrees with 94% humidity. Weather forecast doesn't look good for tomorrow so everyone please do their best sun dance!

Boise State Wrap-up and Mobile, AL

Been a busy few days for Whitman tennis. Last weekend David Deming and Conor Holton-Burke traveled to Boise for the Boise State Invite (mainly a DI event). What a wonderful event: great facilities, fun people and incredible tennis!

Conor had a great weekend of play. In his first match he defeated a LCSC player 6-3, 6-1 but then lost by the same score to talented University of Portland freshman Jackson Martin. The following day Conor wrapped up his tournament with a straight set win over a sophomore from U of Montana. David went 0-2 but played some pretty good tennis considering he has been out most of the fall with a sore back. In his first match he lost 7-5, 6-4 to a very good freshman freshman from Montana State and then lost to a freshman from Idaho State 10-8 in a 3rd set match break.

Currently I'm in Mobile, AL with Matt Solomon for the ITA Small College National Championships. Tomorrow at 10am Matt squares off in a play-in match against the winner of the Texas region. Winner makes it into the final eight tournament grouping. One very exciting and interesting aspect to this tournament is the winners of DIII, DII, NAIA, and JC play-off in the "Small College Superbowl" Winner of this Superbowl gets to play in the NCAA DI National event.

I'll try to provide twitter updates during the match.

Looking ahead

Going to be a busy week for some Whitman players. This weekend David Deming and Conor Holton-Burke are traveling to Boise State to play in the BSU invite. Will be great experience for the two since the majority of teams are DI (we are the only DIII school playing). On Monday Matt Solomon leaves for the ITA Small College National Championships in Mobile, AL.

I'll try to update match scores via Twitter and provide recaps on the blog.

Wrapping up the ITA's

Sorry for the delay in this post. What a great weekend of play for the Whitties at the Northwest Regional ITA tournament (which we hosted). Not only was the tennis incredible but we able to play under picture perfect blue skies!

On Monday the tournament got underway with the men's semi-finals. As a team we were fortunate to get three of our players into the precious final four. One semi's featured senior Matt Solomon vs Linfield's talented #1 player Mark Magdaong. The other semi was an all-Whitman showdown between junior Chris Bailey and freshman Jeffrey Tolman. I should point out that both Chris and Jeffrey had incredible matches on Sunday. Chris battled past teammate Thomas Roston in a 3-hour 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 match. Not to be outdone Jeffrey pulled off the upset of the tournament when he defeated PLU's #1 player Joel Trudel 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Great win for Jeffrey, Joel was NWC player of the year last year (going undefeated in singles) and is DI transfer from U of Idaho.

In the semi's Matt was locked in a tight 1st set battle with Magdoang. At 4-4 Matt kicked it up a notch winning 8 of the last 9 games posting a 6-4, 6-1 victory. Good win for Matt..Magdoang is one of the most talented players in our conference and was playing some sweet ball at the end of last year. On any given day he has the ability to knock off any DIII player. In the other semi's Jeffrey and Chris had a slug fest and traded leads several times each set. In the end Jeffrey was able to gut out a 7-6, 7-6 victory over his teammate.

The first set of the finals was incredible. Jeffrey put on a display of shotmaking that has rarely, if ever, been seen on the Whitman courts. He was literally hitting winners from every position on the court (needless to say I was one happy coach)! Jeffrey ended up winning the first set 6-3. However the long weekend of tennis finally took its toll on Jeffrey and he simply ran out of gas. At the end of the match I wondered if he was going to be able to finish. In the end Matt's won his third straight regional title by a score of 3-6, 6-2, 6-0.

Now the real excitement began. With only an hour break we had to get Jeffrey ready to play in the doubles finals with Matt against the #1 team from PLU. We had Jeffrey in the training room for most of the hour getting fluids in him, eating high energy foods (bagels and bananas) and in the cold hydrotherapy pool.

In the doubles final Matt and Jeffrey ran into a red hot PLU team. Gotta hand it to the PLU guys they really played well and served incredibly well. In fact I don't think they ever faced a break point. They ended up winning the match 6-3, 7-5.

Some highlights from the tournament:

• Whitman places 9 players into the round of 16
• Whitman has 3 of the 4 semi-finalist in singles and doubles
• Freshman Matt Tesmond knocks off the #6 seed (#1 from Whitworth)
• Freshman Sam Sadeghi knocks off the #5 seed (#2 from PLU)
• Tesmond/Sadeghi play great doubles reaching the QTRS before losing to teammates Quin Miller/Conor Holton-Burke
• Conor Holton-Burke upsets a seed in the 1st round 7-6 in the 3rd. He continues through the draw losing to Solomon in the QTRS (6-4, 6-2)
• Conor and Quin upset the #3 seeds in doubles and lose in the semi's to Matt/Jeffrey
• Senior Thomas Roston has his best regional showing knocking off the #11 seed and pushes #3 seed and teammate Bailey the distance losing 7-6 in the 3rd
• Jasper Follows and Chris Bailey make it to the semi's of doubles and lose to the eventual champions
• Jasper played true to his seeding (#13) winning two matches before losing to #4 seed Magdoang of Linfield
• Junior Quin Miller (#16 seed) wins two matches before losing to #2 seed Trudel 6-2, 6-3

What makes the above accomplishments even more amazing is we played without four of our key players: Nadeem Kassam and Etienne Moshevich are both studying in London, senior Jake Cappel was out with a wrist injury, and senior Christoph Fuchs is taking the semester off. Man we are on track to have a great year!

Next weekend I'm traveling with a few Whitties to participate in the Boise State Invite. Will be great competition for the Whitman players as the tournament is primarily a DI event. In fact we will be the only non-scholarship school in the tournament.

Immediately following the Boise event, Matt and I will travel to Mobile, AL for the ITA Small College National Championship.