from the ITA
Thursday, May 19, 2005
The final rounds of the 2005 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships resume Saturday at Texas A&M's George P. Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station.
Fourteen of the top 16 seeds are still alive, including No. 1 and defending champ Baylor, No. 2 Virginia, No. 3 Mississippi and No. 4 Florida. The top-seeded Bears won't have an easy road to the title as it looks to become the first team to repeat since Stanford won a fourth straight championship in 1998. In Saturday's third round they'll face tournament host Texas A&M, the No. 16 seed making its sixth straight final 16 appearance. Baylor (30-0) has won its last 54 matches and is again led by seniors Benedikt Dorsch and Benjamin Becker. Last year Dorsch was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA tournament and six days later Becker captured the NCAA singles crown. Baylor is also trying to become only the fifth team to go through a season unbeaten since the NCAA created a team tournament to determine its champion in 1977, joining Stanford's 1978, 1995 and 1998 teams and the 2003 Illinois team.
Saturday's third round matches are as follows:
2004 finalist and seventh-seeded UCLA and No. 15 Washington are the Pac-10's two representatives in the final 16. If neither school wins the title this year it would mark the longest gap between championships for the Pac-10 (three years) since a team champion was first determined in 1946. But both are familiar faces in this round - UCLA is the only program to have appeared in all 29 final sixteens (since a team tournament was added in '77) and the Huskies are in it for the fourth time in five years. Following UCLA's 27 straight final 16 appearance, the schools with the longest current streaks are: Texas A&M with 6 straight showings and Baylor, Florida and Illinois all with three straight.
The Southeastern Conference boasts six schools in the final 16, followed by the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference with three apiece. Second-seeded Virginia is among those three ACC schools and is looking to become the conference's school to advance past the NCAA quarterfinals. The 26-2 Cavaliers' only two losses this season have come to No. 1 Baylor and they have won 15 in a row entering their third round match against Washington. UVA's 15 is the nation's third longest win streak, following Baylor's 54 straight and Pepperdine's 17 in a row. Illinois has won its last 11 and 89 of its last 93 over the past three seasons.
Texas Tech and Florida State are both making their first Sweet 16 appearances. Tech will face No. 3 Mississippi and FSU faces No. 5 Illinois.
The two programs with the most overall NCAA team titles, Stanford (17) and Southern California (16), both lost in last weekend's second round (to Pepperdine and Washington, respectively). Following those two schools is UCLA with 15 titles. At least one of these three schools have reached at least the NCAA quarterfinals every year since '77.
The tournament, which concludes next Tuesday with a 6 p.m. CT final, can be followed with live scoring updates at www.aggieathletics.com
Texas A&M is hosting this event for the second time and first since 2002. The Aggies boast the nation's largest attendance and expect overflow crowds in its 3,000 seat tennis center for Saturday's matches. This year marks only the sixth time since '77 that the NCAA Men's Championships have been played outside of Athens, Ga. Next year the first ever combined men's and women's tennis championships will be hosted by Stanford.
This is a big two weeks for collegiate tennis. The NCAA Division I Women's Championships resume in Athens today. The final rounds of the NCAA Division III men's and women's tournaments are taking place in Santa Cruz, Calif., and Kalamazoo, Mich., respectively. The NAIA men's and women's tournaments conclude tomorrow in Moblile, Ala., as does the NJCAA men's tournament in Plano, Texas.
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NOTE: A national collegiate men's tennis championship dates back to 1883, making it the oldest for any collegiate sport. From 1883-1945 only singles and doubles champions were determined. From 1946-1976 a team champion was also named, but by points accumulated through player advancement in the singles and doubles tournaments. Starting in 1977 an actual team tournament was created to determine a champion.