2022-23 Shocker Men's Tennis

[1972Shocker]

I was comparing the 2022-23 men's tennis roster to the 2021-22 roster to see what kind of turnover we had with the coaching change. It was a pretty quick hiring as Darragh Glavin was hired about 3 weeks after Danny Bryan's departure for LSU was announced.

Looks like the Shocks lost 4 guys from last year's roster who played quite a bit and 1 who did not play very much last year.

Luka Mrsic, a sophomore last year, was 19-7 in singles matches and 14-14 in doubles matches. Not sure what has become of him. Perhaps turning pro.

Ray Lo, a redshirt sophomore last year, was 15-11 in singles and 11-14 in doubles. He reportedly signed with Oregon in April 2022 which was actually before the season ended and before Danny's departure was announced. However, he is not listed on Oregon's 2022-23 roster so not sure what has become of him either.

Nicolas Acevedo, a redshirt junior last year, was 15-9 in singles and 11-12 in doubles. He has transferred to Florida Atlantic.

Jackie Lin, a freshman last year, was 10-7 in singles and 11-15 in doubles. He is another that I am not sure about his whereabouts.

Stefan Latinovic, a redshirt junior last year, was only 1-4 in singles and 2-2 in doubles. He may have been injured. In 2020-21 he was 9-13 in singles and 12-8 in doubles. Stefan has followed Coach Bryan to LSU.

Returning From Last Year's Roster, listed with there current year class designation, are:

So. Kristin Minarik who joined the Shocks in the 2nd semester last season. He went 13-6 in singles and 12-8 in doubles playing in the 1,2 or 3 singles position. Our best returning players.

R-Sr. Orel Ovil was 10-18 in singles and 12-10 in doubles last year playing most of his singles in the 2, 3 or 4 in dual matches.

R-Jr Alex Richards was 13-15 in singles and 16-12 in doubles last year playing most of his singles in the 4, 5 or 6 in dual matches.

R-Jr Zach Grueber was 5-7 in singles and 3-6 in doubles and played on in the #6 singles and #3 doubles in dual matches.

Sr. Jaydn Richardson was 0-6 in singles and 0-3 in doubles and did not play in any dual matches. Jadyn from Andover started his college tennis at Divsion II McKendree. He may be a walk-on.

So the roster did take a pretty good hit.

Darragh was able to retain 2 freshmen recruited by Coach Bryan and I guess that is a positive. Both are pretty much homegrown especially by college tennis standards and both were rated #1 in their respective states (Oklahoma and Kansas). However, not too many college programs make their living recruiting players from the United States, especially the MIdwest. But I would certainly love to see these young men do well at Wichita State:

Fr. Luke Bracks is from Tulsa, Oklahoma and was the #1 ranked player in Oklahoma.

https://goshockers.com/news/2021/11/11/mens-tennis-shockers-ink-five-star-recruit-luke-bracks.aspx

Fr. Richey King is from Leawood, Kansas but went to The Barstow School, a private school on the MIssouri side of State Line Road.

https://goshockers.com/news/2022/3/2/mens-tennis-shockers-ink-no-1-player-in-kansas.aspx

On paper it looks like the program will take a step backwards this year based on what we lost and what we have returning together with the two new freshman faces.

Will be interesting to see what Darragh does with this group and what he be able to do non the recruiting trail for next year. But my expectations are pretty muted for 2022-23 season.

[SubGod22]

Go Shockers - Four Shockers Set for ITA All-Americans

TULSA, Okla. – The Shockers are sending four men's tennis players to Tulsa, Oklahoma to play in the ITA All-American Championships from Saturday, Oct. 1 to Sunday, Oct. 9 at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on Tulsa's campus and the Case Tennis Center at LaFortune Park.

Misha Kvantaliani, Kristof Minarik, Orel Ovil and Alex Richards join a list of 252 other pre-qualifiers that will begin competition this Saturday. Each will need to win four matches to claim one of 16 openings in the 128-player qualifying draw. Following three more rounds of qualifiers (Oct. 3-4), the 16 remaining players will advance to the main draw where they will battle it out for the singles title (Oct. 5-9).

On Monday and Tuesday, Minarik and Richards will pair up for the doubles qualifiers, where they will need to win three matches to earn a spot in the 64-team main draw.

[SubGod22]

Go Shockers - Shockers Conclude ITA All-American Championships

TULSA, Okla. – The Wichita State men's tennis team collected four wins over two days of the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Misha Kvantaliani won his first two pre-qualifying matches on Saturday, defeating Illinois State's Nam Pham, 6-2, 6-0, in the round of 256 and Rice's Dylan Heap, 2-6, 6-4, 6-0, in the round of 128. On Sunday, he fell to Florida State's Jamie Connel, 2-6, 3-6, in the round of 64.

Orel Ovil also won his first match on Saturday, taking down Baylor's Ethan Muza in three sets (6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2), but dropped his second match of the day to Mississippi State's Carles Hernandez. Kristof Minarik and Alex Richards were both knocked out in the first round, but Minarik came back to earn a win over Maxime Mareschal-Hay, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3, in the consolation match on Sunday.

The Shockers are back in action for their final fall tournament Thursday, Oct. 13 through Monday, Oct. 17. They are scheduled to play in the ITA Central Region Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the Billingsley Tennis Center.

[1972Shocker]

Minarik Earns Bid to ITA Fall Nationals

https://goshockers.com/news/2022/10/17/mens-tennis-minarik-earns-bid-to-ita-fall-nationals.aspx

Kristof Minarik became the first Shocker since 1984 to earn a singles bid to the ITA National Fall Championships after making a run to the ITA Central Region Championships singles final Monday in Fayetteville, Ark.

After earning a bye in the round of 128, Minarik dropped his first set, 6-3, to North Dakota's Cian McDonnell in the round of 64 and was forced to battle it out in the tiebreaker in the second set, narrowly escaping defeat with a 7-6 (11-9) set two win, before getting in his groove to move on to the round of 32 with a 6-3 set three victory.

"Having saved five match points in the first round, he improved his intensity level each match," Glavin said.

In the round of 32, Minarik defeated Oklahoma's Alex Martinez in straight sets, 7-5, 6-1, and went on to take down Oklahoma State's Alessio Basile, 7-6(4), 6-1, to earn a trip to the quarterfinals, where he claimed his third-straight straight-set victory, beating Baptiste Anselmo of OU, 6-2, 7-5. In doing so, Minarik became the first Shocker since All-American Murkel Dellien in 2018 to make an ITA Central Region semifinal appearance.

In the semis, Minarik jumped out to an early lead and was up, 4-2, when his opponent, Alejandro Garcia (OSU), went down and was forced to retire due to injury, sending Minarik to the Monday morning final against Nathan Han (OU).

Minarik found himself down 5-3 in the first set, but battled back, winning four-straight games to take set one, 7-5. In the second, the set was tied at 3-all when Han pulled ahead to take a 5-3 advantage, ultimately winning, 6-4, to even the match. Han had a dominant third set, only giving up one game to Minarik to be named the ITA Central Region Singles Champion.

As a Central Region finalist, Minarik punched his ticket to the ITA National Fall Championships, which will take place November 2-6 at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, Calif. He will be the first Shocker since Jeremy Grubi in 1984.

[1972Shocker]

Minarik Concludes ITA Fall Nationals

Kristof Minarik bowed out in the round of 16 at the ITA National Fall Championships.

Minarik opened the tournament with a round of 32 win over California's Ryder Jackson, who was the singles runner up of the ITA Northwest Regional. Jackson claimed a 6-3 set one victory, but Minarik came back in the second set, winning 6-4 to even the match. After Minarik went up 4-1 in the third, Jackson made a 4-1 run to tie it up, forcing Minarik to win two straight to avoid a tiebreak and close out the match with a 7-5 win.

Following his day one win, Minarik went up against the No. 4 seed Eliot Spizzirri of Texas who was slated 35^th in the ITA National Preseason Singles Rankings and made a run to the semifinals of the ITA All-American Championships in early October.

Spizzirri had a strong showing, winning 6-2, 6-1 to move on to the quarterfinals and knock Minarik out of the tournament.

[1972Shocker]

Shockers Conclude Fall Season

https://goshockers.com/news/2022/11/6/mens-tennis-shockers-conclude-fall-season.aspx

The Shocker men, which did not include Kristof Minarik who recently finished a run to the round of 16 at the ITA Nationals, took on mostly SMU and Baylor opponents plus a few from Boise State in Dallas to closeout their fall season. Things did not go so well. The Shocks only won 2 out of 23 matches. That does not bode too well for the Spring.

[1972Shocker]

New Shocker men's tennis HCDG has inked his first two recruits in time for this spring semester. Hopefully, they will add some needed depth and skill to the roster. Not all that uncommon to add foreign tennis players at the semester break.

https://goshockers.com/news/2023/1/11/mens-tennis-shockers-sign-jacome-petreni-for-spring-season.aspx

[RoyalShock]

The new guys did pretty well this past weekend, especially Jacome. He went 4-0 in singles (3 at #4 singles, 1 at #3) and had the only WSU match wins versus Arizona St and Illinois. If this past weekend is any indication, he might be a solid #3 or even #2 singles player already.

Petrini won his only singles match (at #6), and when paired together, they won their only doubles match.

Both are freshmen.

[RoyalShock]

I'm watching some of the singles matches vs. Arkansas. Minarik won on a 2nd set tiebreak on a very questionable call. It looked in by several inches but the chair ump appears to have called it out to end the match. Ovil and Bracks already lost, giving UA a 3-1 lead. The other three guys are playing tough, though I have seen a couple of our guys make questionable line calls to end a game. Still, it's entertaining and competitive.

Watch live here: https://web.playsight.com/livestream...b4400a9818da1d

Live stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=439215

[RoyalShock]

Kvantaliani seems to have run out of steam in the 3rd set, getting down 0-3. Unless he can hold serve and get his break back it will probably mean and WSU loss.

Jacome's match is 4-4 in the 3rd. Kvantaliani holds, then breaks serve to get back on serve at 2-3. Richards's match is tied 2-2 in the 3rd. There's hope yet!

Jacome tied at 5-5, Kvantaliani down 3-4 (still on serve), Richards 3-3 ... No, make the 2-4. The live score changed after it went 3-3.

Jacome just lost serve to go 5-6. Kvantaliani also lost serve to go 3-5, and Richards being down a service game will probably doom the Shocks.

Jacome went down to end the the match at 1-4, Hogs. Some very tough matches in this one!

Other than Ovil's 4-6, 1-6 loss, the singles matches were all very close.

[1972Shocker]

Shockers Shut Out Oral Roberts, Cowley

https://goshockers.com/news/2023/3/8...ts-cowley.aspx

If you are like me you having a juco (Cowley College) on the regular season schedule seemed a bit odd. But Cowley is ranked #1 and was 5-0 prior to playing the Shocks with all 5 of those matches being against Division II schools with the most recent a 6-1 win at Washburn.

While the Shocks did defeat both ORU and Cowley 4-0 with 3 matches going unfinished, Cowley was reasonably competitive including winning the No. 1 doubles match 6-2 while losing the other 2 doubles matches by 5-7 and 4-6. The 3 singles matches the Shocks won were at #1 (7-5, 6-4), #2 (7-5. 6-3) and #6 (6-0, 6-2). The #3, #4 and #5 singles were all in the 3rd set when the Shocks clinched the winning point and the ended the match.

Perhaps there was a recruiting motivation behind these scheduling.

BTW, looks like Cowley might be recruiting some of there football players for the tennis team.



Actually, this is Bruno (a good football player name) Nhavene from Mozambique. He played #1 doubles and #3 singles for Cowley. Not sure how tall he is but he is the tallest guy on the Cowley team and appears to be a very stoutly put together young man who looks more like a running back then a tennis player, but apparently is quite good with the tennis racket in his hands.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks have 9 matches remaining between 9 and the AAC Championships that start on April 21st. 6 of those matches are against fellow AAC members UCF, South Florida, Tulsa, Memphis, SMU and Temple. The other the matches are against UT-Arlington, Drake and Creighton. So we should have a pretty good idea by the end of the regular season how the Shocks stack up against the rest of the AAC. My expectations are maybe not so well, but we will see.

One thing I did note about the ORU and Cowley matches is that the Shocks #1 singles player, Kristof Minarik, only played in the #1 doubles matches and not in the singles matches. Perhaps nursing some kind of minor injury?

[1972Shocker]

With a 4-1 loss at #35 Memphis on Friday the Shocks losing streak reached 6 matches with 5 of those losses to teams ranked in the top 75 which inlcuded 4 losses to AAC teams all of whom were ranked..

On Saturday, the Shocks played SMU in Memphis and upset the #55 ranked Mustangs 4-3. The Shocks lost the doubles point and then he Mustangs' No. 66-ranked Adam Neff defeated Kristof Minarik, 6-2, 6-2, at No. 1 singles to take a 2-0 lead. Misha Kvantaliani responded with 6-4, 6-3 win at No. 2, his fourth win of the season at court two. SMU's Antonio Muniz put the Mustangs in position to clinch with a win at No. 3, but Luke Bracks and Alejandro Jacome won their matches at courts six and four, respectively, to tie the match at 3-3.

The pressure to clinch fell on Alex Richards at court five, where he took his match to a third set after dropping the first and came out on top, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, giving the Shockers their first win since Mar. 8.

---

The AAC is proving to be quite a challenging tennis league for the Shocks. Far tougher than what they faced in the Valley, although Drake was generally good, which no longer sponors men's tennis.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocker men are seeded 7th in the 8 team field in the AAC Championships this weekend. Temple is seeded 8th but the beat the Shockers yesterday in Orlando in the final dual match of the regular season by a 4-3 score.

The Shocks play #2 seed Tulane 11:00 am on Friday. Tulane is currently ranked at #43 nationally. The Shocks played quite a few AAC teams this year but they did not play Tulane. they went 1-5 in those AAC matches with their only win over a 4-3 upset over 4 seed SMU in Memphis. Most likely their team season comes to an end on Friday.

[1972Shocker]

The 7th seeded Shockers are off to a good start against 2 seed Tulane in the AAC Men's Tennis Championships today as they have secured the doubles point with a 6-2 win at the #1 doubles and a 6-4 win at the #3 doubles. They were also up 5-4 in the #2 doubles when they clinched the point.

On to the 6 singles matches were the Shocks need a split to pull the upset. Doubles results are not particularly predictive of how the singles will go as they are totally different animals but have that doubles point in your pocket no doubt give the Shockers a mental boost heading into the singles.