Tennis Channel / USTA College Tennis Top 25 — March 20, 2019
ORLANDO, Fla., March 20, 2019 – After the victory that propelled the Texas men’s tennis team to its first No. 1 ranking in the Tennis Channel / USTA College Tennis Top 25’s three seasons, interim coach Bruce Berque said, in part, “… the guys did a great job of supporting each other.”
Indeed, the Longhorns toppled previous No. 1 Ohio State, 4-1, last week to climb atop the men’s poll and improve to 16-1 on the season, one day after Berque officially took over for previous head coach Michael Center. The Longhorns now, with two players ranked in the Top 10 in the ITA’s men’s singles rankings, get ready to head into the meat of their Big 12 schedule on a five-match winning streak.
Another big mover in the men’s poll was Florida, which jumped four spots into the Top 5 after three 5-2 victories, over previous No. 2 Wake Forest, Georgia and Tennessee, matches in which both Oliver Crawford and Sam Riffice went undefeated at No. 1 and No. 3 singles, respectively.
No team on either side, though, made a leap like the Pepperdine women. The Waves, now 8-3 overall, notched three victories last week, over UCLA, Rice and Texas, with the Bruins and Longhorns each ranked in the Top 10. Ashley Lahey, an NCAA singles finalist last year, led the Waves during that stretch, going 3-0 at No. 1 singles to increase her singles record at the No. 1 position this season to 6-2.
The Texas A&M women also jumped into the Top 25, at No. 19, thanks to home victories over Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
Each team’s point total, specified below, is the sum of its ranking points from the USTA’s panel of 14 voters (listed below). Each voter ranked 25 teams from Nos. 1 to 25, with the first-place team receiving 25 points and the last place team receiving one. For control, the highest and lowest outlying ranking for each team on the ballot was removed. First-place votes were not tallied. The maximum points a team can earn is 300.
The full list of voters participating in the 2019 rankings are: Casey Angle (former Intercollegiate Tennis Association Director of Championships); Jordan Bishop (The News Press; Stillwater, Okla.); Virgil Christian (USTA Collegiate Tennis); Richard Croome (The Eagle; Bryan, Texas); Sonny Dearth (Daily Press; Newport News, Va.); Granger Huntress (Texas College Tennis); David Fish (Universal Tennis Ratings); Andy Katz (NCAA.com); Bobby Knight (College Tennis Today); Brandon Moglen (Tennis Channel); Shannon Wrege (Tennis Recruiting Network); Michael Patrick (former University of Tennessee women’s head coach), Lisa Stone (Parenting Aces) and Caitlin Thompson (Racquet Magazine).
MEN’S POLL
Rank (Last Week) – Points
- (3) Texas – 298
- (1) Ohio State – 283
- (2) Wake Forest – 277
- (8) Florida – 256
- (5) Virginia – 240
- (6) Stanford – 237
- (7) TCU – 226
- (4) North Carolina – 219
- (10) Baylor – 205
- (9) Columbia – 204
- (11) USC – 172
- (12) Mississippi State – 167
- (13) UCLA – 152
- (19) Texas A&M – 146
- (15) Oklahoma – 132
- (16) Illinois – 119
- (18) Minnesota – 103
- (14) Michigan – 98
- (23) Georgia – 66
- (25) Florida State – 65
- (21) Tennessee – 48
- (NR) Miami (Fla.) – 36
- (17) Notre Dame – 34
- (NR) Vanderbilt – 23
- (20) Oregon – 22
Receiving Votes: Arizona State 12, South Carolina 11, LSU 5, Alabama 2, San Diego 2, BYU 1, Texas Tech 1.
Dropped Out: South Carolina (22), Alabama (24).
WOMEN’S POLL
Rank (Last Week) – Points
- (1) Georgia – 300
- (2) North Carolina – 288
- (3) Stanford – 275
- (4) Duke – 265
- (12) Pepperdine – 233
T6. (7) South Carolina – 224
T6. (5) Vanderbilt – 224
- (6) Texas – 212
- (10) Ohio State – 208
- (8) UCLA – 186
- (11) Florida State – 182
- (9) Michigan – 162
- (13) NC State – 156
- (15) Oklahoma State – 153
- (16) California – 127
- (18) Miami (Fla.) – 101
- (19) Washington – 100
- (14) Kansas – 88
- (NR) Texas A&M – 74
- (24) Virginia – 70
- (20) Northwestern – 58
- (21) USC – 57
- (23) UCF – 53
- (22) Wake Forest – 46
- (17) LSU – 34
Receiving Votes: Florida 14, Kentucky 10, Tennessee 5.
Dropped Out: Tennessee (25).
