D III Men's Team Indoor Underway; Update on D I Formats for Conference Play; Sanford, Schaefer in Grade 2 Final in Chile

Just four days after the completion of the Division I Men's Team Indoor in Chicago, the ITA Division III Men's Indoor gets underway with eight teams traveling to St. Peter Minnesota, where Gustavus Adolphus is the tournament's host.  Two matches have been completed today, with No. 2 seed and defending champion Washington St. Louis just getting by No. 7 Kenyon 5-4, and No. 3 Emory defeating No. 6 Carnegie Mellon by the same score. The top seed is Trinity, who is playing the eighth-seeded hosts this evening, with No. 5 Case Western against No. 4 Johns Hopkins in the other night match.

The bloggers at Division3Tennis.com have written a preview for the Tennis Recruiting Network, available here.  If you want even more inside information on what to look for in Minnesota, check out their blog.

The Men's Team Indoor All-tournament team was announced by the ITA, with Oklahoma's Alex Ghilea the Most Outstanding Player. The complete team can be found here.  And I want to thank Jonathan Kelley again for his outstanding coverage of that tournament for this site. It's great to have a fresh set of eyes on the college tennis beat, and I know he enhanced my enjoyment of the tournament.

With last week's decision by the NCAA championship cabinet to table the ITA format approved and put forth by the NCAA Division I tennis committee, information on the format being played by which genders and which conferences has been hard to come by.  The ITA ruled that all remaining nonconference matches would be played in the no-ad, one set to 6 in doubles format, but if the two coaches agree otherwise, they can play any format they want.  Apparently Georgia Tech(ACC) and Georgia(SEC) have agreed to play the 2014 NCAA format (8 game pro set in doubles, regular scoring) for their match Saturday, according to this preview, but the North Carolina men (ACC) are playing in Texas(Big 12) tonight and they appear to be playing the ITA format, with the doubles point decided in six-game sets.

From what I understand, these major conferences/genders are playing ITA format for the rest of the season, including their conference tournaments, switching to NCAA format only when the NCAAs begin.

SEC Men
Big 12 Men
Pac 12 Men
Big 12 Women

Unless I have misunderstood, teams in these conferences will play the NCAA format for the remainder of the year. If anyone has information otherwise, please let me know in the comments.

SEC Women
Big 10 Women
Big 10 Men
ACC Men
ACC Women
Pac 12 Women

Schaefer and Sewing also won the Eddie Herr 16s doubles title last year

At the ITF Grade 2 in Chile, Alexandra Sanford, the No. 2 seed, will take on No. 9 seed Dominique Schaefer of Peru in the final.  Sanford defeated Gabby Pollner(7)  6-1, 6-4 and Schaefer downed No. 8 seed Sofia Sewing 6-4, 06, 7-6(4).   Schaefer and Sewing, the No. 3 seeds, teamed to defeat top seeds Pollner and Sanford in the doubles final 6-2, 4-6, 10-2.

Jack Barber and Liam Caruana won the doubles title, with the No. 3 seeds defeating top seeds Marcelo Barrios Vera of Chile and Juan Rosas of Peru 7-6(5), 7-5.  No. 2 seed Barrios Vera and Geronimo Espin Busleiman of Argentina, the No. 13 seed, will meet in the boys singles final Saturday.