I don't think this necessarily means much................but the Bucs knocked off IU in Bloomington Friday, 6-1. I don't think IU is very strong this year, as they lost 4-0 to a good MTSU team on Sunday. But still..............a win over a Big 10 school in tennis is pretty nice.

My life has been EXCEEDINGLY busy lately......................and I apologize for not keeping you all up to date on our teams thus far, but.......................

It's been mostly a good season for both.

Men again winning the regular and conference tournament titles. Play Northwestern (ranked about 30th, I think) in the regional. So we got a regional 3rd seed, which we deserved, instead of getting stuck with the #4. Winner plays UK/Depaul winner. UK ranked 8th, and are maybe a tad better than that.
Were ranked at least as high as 68th, but that may not have been the highest. No, no banner for that.

Northwestern match (the regional is being played in Lexington) will be Friday at either 10 AM or 1 PM. Not sure of the disparity of time choices. I predict it will be at 10 AM, but it's only that. Don't know a whole lot about Northwestern but they're a typical Big Ten team, altho not so loaded as Ohio St. or Michigan (or UK, to be blunt). It's a good seed, a fair seed, and an appropriate match-up. Maybe even a reasonable(?) chance of prevailing. Weather may well be an issue, tho. Obviously the Wildcats play a lot of their matches indoors, while the Bucs would prefer the great outdoors. And it doesn't look great in Lexington for Friday. Remember how we had that *terrible* luck a few years ago of leading Ohio St. until the rain came and had to move it indoors.

Girls also had a very good season, but again fell to powerhouse Furple. They won some very tough matches, and had some close losses against some ranked teams, and actually defeated UNCC (here), and they were ranked 52nd at the time. In both matches against Furple, it could have gone either way, really. Very, very close, with multiple matches going to 3 sets and/or tiebreakers both times. And Furple is ranked 32nd in the country. ETSU was ranked in the top 75 for a while this Spring, but don't remember what the highest was. But should have been higher. And no, also probably not enough for another banner.

[Team rankings get a bit wavy and nebulous down below about 40 or so. Just not really enough good data to go on.]

As predicted, 10 AM start time - just over 6 hours from now.

https://www.etsubucs.com/mtennis/news/20...rst-round/

Theoretically............(often these things are poor quality) live stats and video.

Gosh let's hope it's dry..................

And OF COURSE that link doesn't work, but this one from UK does:

https://web.track.tennis/events/watch?ke...-msbQyQU#/

And Northwestern did just win the doubles point INDOORS. Dang. We *always* seem to get bad luck on that.

Northwestern is "solid", but not spectacular. Badras already lost the first set against their #1 guy, who's ranked 42nd. In general, Bucs are losing early leads they had in most singles matches. But get this -- UK only has FOUR indoor courts! Shocking, actually, and there's not enough room on the sides of the two outer courts. I'm really afraid this is going to be yet another indoor/outdoor story.

[Update #1: Rengifo also lost the first set 6-3, after being up 3-0(?), and Zabala lost his first one, also 6-3, but I'm not sure he was up early in that one. Khamis, up all along in his first set, is now at 5-5.]

[Update #2: This isn't going to end well..... Bucs can't even hold the leads they're getting in the second sets. May not even have to play the last two positions.]

[Update #3: Badra out 3 and 5; Rengifo out 3 and 4.]

[Final Update: And that's it. Simen Bratholm closes out Yusuf Kamis at #3, 7-5, 6-3. Zabala was tied 5-5 in the second, and of course will go unfinished.]

Final scores:

http://www.sidearmstats.com/ukentucky/tennis/xlive.htm

https://www.etsubucs.com/mtennis/news/20...-wildcats/

Hilarious/pathetic that the #5 and 6 matches are termed "unfinished" instead of "unstarted".

Such a downer and an anticlimactic way to end things. If the indoor tennis center had been built as PROMISED (well) more than 10 years ago, we would be stronger indoors, AND we'd be able to attract more good teams to come for OOC matches (which would raise our profile and national ranking). Not that dissimilar from the problems of scheduling home hoops games.
Maybe "one of these days"................... But we still need a track much more importantly, however. Still remains a glaring embarrassment.

Maybe if they put basketball goals on each end, they could trick them into thinking the tennis facility is really a basketball facility and get it built.

In spite of the tournament results, it is good to see that the Bucs do have really good programs in the "non-revenue" sports, too.

(05-04-2022 04:57 PM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  Winner plays UK/Depaul winner. UK ranked 8th, and are maybe a tad better than that.
........Don't know a whole lot about Northwestern but they're a typical Big Ten team, altho not so loaded as Ohio St. or Michigan (or UK, to be blunt).

After Northwestern beat the Bucs, the Cats rolled them 4-2, then knocked off a really good Wake Forest team 4-2, then regional #1 seed TCU 4-3 in a close one, obviously. Then today they took down Ohio St. to put them in the finals against UVa, who beat Tennessee in the other semifinal. So yeah, UK was better than their 8 seed.