I was recently in Raleigh for the Thursday night football game between North Carolina State and Florida State. Before I made the trip I learned that UNC Chapel Hill would be hosting the ITA Mideast college regionals. I knew this was something I wanted to check out.
On my way to the football game I stopped at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center to catch an hour or so of action. The qualifying round was taking place and the first match I saw when I walked in the facility was David Hopkins of Wake Forest. He was getting ready to take his match to a third set when I ran into some of the Georgia Tech players looking on at a few matches. I spent a few minutes with them getting their perspective on the upcoming season. They are a great group of guys and they always make a point of saying hello to me at the matches.
Shortly after that, I ran into head coach Kenny Thorne and we visited for quite awhile. He is so enthusiastic and is really looking forward to the upcoming season. Tech has a new assistant coach, Aljosa Piric, and his arrival at the Flats is a great story. Kenny has known Aljosa for a long time and is really excited to have him on his staff.
Before returning to Charlotte on Friday, I had made the decision to take a day off from work and catch a full day of matches. I watched Ryan Smith of GT fight back after dropping the first set and take out his opponent from Radford. Once he won the second set, he was in complete control and played smart by moving his opponent around and forcing him to make shots he wasn't converting.
Later I saw Doug Kenny from GT play a tough match against the College of Charleston. Kenny went down in straight sets and was never really able to wrestle control from his opponent. I talked with Doug's father before the match and he was feeling good because he and his wife went to the N.C. State game the night before to root the Seminoles on to victory. He went to FSU.
The last GT match I saw was Ryan Smith and Miguel Muguruza in doubles taking on a team from Radford. Kenny Thorne sat with me for a few games of the first set and provided some good strategic insight. The Jackets were playing tough, but not converting on the key points and they ended up going down in straight sets in an entertaining match.
The day was filled with great action on every court. I loved the Davidson - Clemson doubles match where Davidson went up 4-1 and was set for an upset but Clemson clawed their way back and when the match was 8-8, the Tigers went on to win the tie-break. All day long you could see high quality matches from players at schools like UNC, Wake Forest, Florida State, Clemson, William and Mary, and East Tennessee State. Colette Lewis at Zoo Tennis recently wrote in her blog that the quality of tennis you will see from the major NCAA conferences is equivalent to seeing USTA challenger circuit matches. I could not agree more with her observation. One of these days, more tennis fans from all over will realize this and start making a point to catch these matches. Events like the ITA championships are like all-star events where you can see multiple players from multiple teams come together for some great entertainment. And if you really watch them play, you can learn something too.
Time.
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