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!