Spring sports are right around the corner and the season's most successful Hokies squad looks like it may be the Men's Tennis Team. No we will not win a national championship or even an ACC championship, but this is the best men's tennis team the Hokies have seen under Head Coach Jim Thompson. Our men's tennis team has been on the rise for a while now and last year they reached a #13 ranking and knocked off a Duke team that was ranked #1 at that time. To add to the excitement only one player graduated from last year's team, Glen Allen's own Hunter Koontz.
But what is different from this team compared to last year you may ask? Out of a roster of 10 players, six are seniors. That's right. Six. As it stands right now, there are not enough current players on campus to fill out a six-man lineup next year (we already have two commitments don't worry we will field a team). So let's forget about all that nonsense, relax, and support these Hokies!
I understand not everyone knows how college tennis goes so here is my quick summary before I continue: The teams start off playing 3 doubles matches, whichever team wins 2 out of the 3 matches gets one point. Then each team ranks their six best singles players from 6 to 1 on what is typically called a ladder, with the 1 spot being the best player. The 1's on each team play each other and so on. Each singles victory is also a point for the team and whichever team gets 4 out of the possible 7 points wins.
How has the team been doing so far?
In NCAA tennis, the first semester is spent playing individual tournaments. There are no team fixtures until the opener at Alabama on January 16th. That doesn't mean we can't analyze how some of our top players have performed.
Andreas Bjerrehus: The Great Dane is my personal favorite player on this team. He is one of the more consistent players on the team and his success has led to him representing Denmark in the Davis Cup. Alongside Joao Monteiro this fall, he reached the doubles semifinals of the ITA Regional tournament. It will be exciting to see how his final year plays out as he can almost always be counted on at that second spot and occasionally fills in at the one spot.
Joao Monteiro: Hailing from Portugal, Joao has had the best fall season of any of his teammates. He typically played around the 3 or 4 spot last year and will most likely be our 3 this year as Hunter Koontz is no longer here. He made it all the way to the semifinals of the ITA National Singles Tournament, eventually falling to one of the best players in the nation. With his strong play he will certainly be counted on for the Hokies to pull out some key results.
Amerigo Contini: The Italian (notice a theme here?) is the man who typically occupies our number one spot. He is certainly fiery and is always ready to compete with the best player on the opposing team. However he is not on the level of the elite players that teams like UVA will put out there at the one spot, but I still expect him to surprise and pull off a few upsets like he did last year.
Season Prediction
The Hokies will win with their strength in depth. The 3-6 spots will be the most critical to success on this team and I am interested to see how the loss of Koontz will affect the results. It looks like many of our players have stepped it up this fall and I anticipate seeing if their form continues on into the regular season. We are currently ranked #16 and could see us breaking the top ten at some point. Making it to the quarterfinals of the national tournament would be a huge success for this team and I could see them being the squad to pull it off.
The season kicks off on the 16th as the Hokies take on Alabama and I hope to cover some of the home matches this spring. If anyone in the area needs something to do on a weekend, a tennis match on a nice day is a great way to spend it!
Comments
I'm just doing this thing for fun but if you guys would like to see me cover it more just let me know!
More sports is good, mmkay?
Love the in depth detail. Not even a tennis fan but found this very insightful.
I like it! Keep these up please
Thanks- BTW, Jim Thompson is a really great guy. Hope we can come through on the facility upgrades on the board.
One interesting change for the season - the NCAA implemented no-ad scoring for the 2016 season. When the score gets to 40-40 (deuce) the next point wins as opposed to typical format of win by two in that scenario. I'm not sure if it'll have any impact on the results but at the very least it'll make the matches finish faster.
NCAA has done so much to speed up tennis. First they made doubles matches into just an 8-game set, then they started playing lets, and now this. I'm okay with the first two changes, but no ad scoring takes away the fun and drama of those 10 minute games
more tennis coverage, please!
i played it a lot in high school (recreationally) and followed as much as i could while on campus but now that i've graduated and gone, this helps me stay on top of what's going on with VT Tennis. thanks for the write-up!
My high school team played Hunter Koontz's team (Deep Run) for a couple years. I was playing #2 while he was #1. I felt so badly for my teammate. It was just winner after winner being slapped by him. It's tough to make it a fair fight when one guy is the best player in the state.
Anyway, I'm really excited for the promise of this year's team! I've always followed the team a little bit, but have always done a poor job at staying on top of it.
One of my best friends finished up his UVA tennis career last year, and throughout the season kept telling me that we were good that year and that we'd be really good this year.
Even making that UVA team is an incredible accomplishment, congrats to him for his success. I really am cautiously optimistic about this year though, the only worry is how the loss of Koontz affects the depth of the ladder.
IMO we need one more player to step up and take control of the 4 spot to truly compete
Can u explain the ladder more? What stops a team from putting their #6 at the 1 position so their #1-5 have mismatches at 2-6 positions?
Are do the teams go back and forth selecting players preventing this from happening?
For the most part I think it is an honor system. No recruits would want to play on a ladder where their coach prevents them from playing the best. I do have my heavy suspicions about whether Contini is truly our best singles player.
We did this all the time when I played in High School. There were rules against it but we still sucked and lost so we didn't get in trouble.
we did this in high school golf. but we kept 1 playing 1 and 2 playing 2. then we would mix up 3 - 6 so that 5 and 6 played 3 and 4. psychologically, me playing the 5's improved my game dramatically. but as you said, we were never winning outright so didn't really matter.
I think there is some fudging allowed if you want to go by ITA rankings. See UVA's lineup in the NCAA finals last year (#19 in the country playing at 4). The opposing coach can also protest if they think the lineup is stacked/unfair.
Thanks for this write-up! Outside of the football and basketball games, checking out tennis matches was next on my list as an undergrad. At the time, there wasn't much buzz around the team, so I hope they see higher attendance now.
To anyone still around to check out matches I highly recommend it! Only note- there are appropriate and inappropriate times to clap/cheer/make noise as a tennis spectator. Learn them to keep from being 'that guy'