Today was play-in day at the 2011 USTA/ITA National Championships in Mobile, AL. These championships have evolved to where the winners of the PNW and Texas regional tournaments arrive a day early for a one match play-in. Win that match and you are guaranteed three more matches. Lose and you are out of the tournament. Its not a perfect system but financially much better than the old format where the regional tournament alternated between Texas and PNW.
Since the separation of the PNW/Texas tournaments (6 years ago) it has been a Whitman vs Trinity affair in singles. I believe in doubles it has been Whitman and Trinity 4 of the past 6 years. Because of this history both teams/players are well acquainted with the play-in system.
In the singles play-in match sophomore Andrew La Cava had the tough task of playing the #4 player in the nation in Trinity senior Max Frey. At the end of last year he was one of the hottest players in the nation advancing to the semis in the NCAA individual tournament.
Today Andrew played a brilliant match to knock off the Trinity player 6-3, 6-1. Funny how tennis works. A few weeks ago Andrew wasn't sure if he was even going to play in the regional tournament because of shoulder tendinitis. Because of a sore shoulder he hasn't been able to serve big and play his typical attacking serve and volley game. The past few weeks he has adapted to playing much more patient from the baseline and picking his spots to be aggressive. Today he focused on getting a high percentage of 1st serves in play and rolling the ball deep to neutralize Frey's huge game (he has a monster serve and forehand). Andrew executed his game plan perfectly and played his way into the final grouping. An odd part about the tournament is the ITA committee had to produce 2 different draws because of the play-in match system. If Frey would have won he would have been the #2 seed in the main draw. Instead Andrew now goes into the draw and now plays the #1 seed Dillon Pottish of Emory. Basically Andrew has to play the #2 and #1 seeds in the tournament on back-to-back days!
Unfortunately doubles didn't go as well. Senior Conor Holton-Burke and junior Matt Tesmond took on Frey and his partner. The Trinity combo is very experienced having played together all last season and part of the 2009 season. The Trinity team played incredibly solid tennis making most every return, forcing Conor and Matt into difficult situations. In the 1st set the Trinity team broke the 1st game of the set and never looked back winning 6-2. Early in the 2nd set it looked like the Trinity team would run away with the match as they broke to open the set. At 0-2 down the Whitties started to find their grove winning 3 straight games to go up 3-2 (on serve). The experience of the Trinity team showed as they didn't get rattled by Conor/Matt's improved play and they reeled off 4 straight games to take the match 6-2, 6-3.
Tomorrow Andrew plays at 10:30am. I will try to keep a Twitter feed going with live scores.
Here is a link to some pictures (updating tonight)
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