Today is the end of day 3 of the ITA's. Yesterday Andrew had a struggle against the elements and #1 ranked Dillon Pottish of Emory. Andrew was disappointed that he lost to the #1 player in the nation 6-2, 6-2. It was a rough loss for Andrew as the high humidity and tough opponent were too much for him to handle. At the end of the match I was worried how Andrew was dealing with the heat and humidity and if he would be able to continue with the tournament. After a day in the hotel and lots and lots of water, Andrew was feeling like his normal self.
Today Andrew had a 8:30am match against #4 seed Amrik Donkena of Gustavus Adolphus College. Turned out to be a very streaky match. In the 1st set Andrew was up 5-4 serving only to lose 3 straight games and drop the 1st set 7-5. The second set was even up to about 3-3 when Andrew picked up his level of play reeling off 7 straight games to go up 5-7, 6-3, 4-0. Down 0-4 Donkena was ready to give up the match and made a major change in tactics (slicing most every ball) and clawed his way back into the set at 3-4 (Andrew up a break). Serving at 4-3 Andrew totally stepped up the plate to easily hold serve and break to win the match.
Tomorrow Andrew plays the #3 seed Joey Fritz of Amherst. Like Andrew, Fritz is a talented sophomore. I believe in his last year of junior tennis Fritz was ranked as high as #19 in the nation! He might be the highest ranked player ever to play DIII. Kind of interesting fact about the tournament -- because of the play-in match and the draw placement, Andrew will have played 4 of the top 5 players in the tournament. Talk about some tough matches!
As usual someone (thanks Conor) will be twittering the scores.
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