Easter Bowl Recap; SEC Conference Finals Set; Ly, Yadlapalli Win ITF B1 Asian Closed; Pierre-Louis Claims Grade 4 in Guadeloupe

My recap of the Easter Bowl Spring Championships, available today at the Tennis Recruiting Network, provides a condensed version of the seven days of tennis coverage I provided last week while in the Coachella Valley.  I will be processing the slideshow and videos from that tournament in the upcoming week.

The SEC conference tournament finals are set, with the University of Georgia still alive in both the men's and women's draws.  The top-seeded Georgia men defeated No. 4 Ole Miss 4-1 today, while host Texas A&M, the No. 2 seed, beat No. 3 seed Mississippi State 4-0. Georgia won the regular season meeting between the two teams in Athens 4-1 back in early March.

The women's tournament, played in Columbia, SC, had a few more surprises.  No. 3 seed Texas A&M was beaten by No. 6 seed LSU in the 4-3 in the quarterfinals, with the match coming down to a third-set tiebreaker with the score tied at 3.  No. 2 Georgia handled LSU today however, and will meet No. 4 seed Vanderbilt in the final, after they took out No. 1 seed Florida 4-2.  It is the second win for Vanderbilt over Florida this year. Georgia beat Vanderbilt 5-2 in Athens in regular season play back in March.

In other notable results today in college tennis, the Cal men defeated Stanford 4-3, denying the Cardinal the outright Pac-12 championship. The TCU men, who beat Texas A&M last week, followed up this week with a 4-1 win over Texas today in Fort Worth.  It's TCU's first win over Texas since 1996.

Last night, No. 33 Minnesota defeated No. 3 Illinois 4-3, yet another indication that sure things in Division I college tennis are rare this year.

The ITF Grade B1 Asian Closed was played in India this week, with Nam Hoang Ly of Vietnam and Pranjala Yadlapalli of India sweeping the titles.  Yadlapalli, the No. 2 seed, beat top seed Wushuang Zheng of China 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 in the singles final, while Ly defeated No. 8 seed Renata Toduka of Japan 5-7, 6-2, 6-3.

Ly and Alberto Lim of the Philippines, seeded 1, defeated No. 2 seeds Toduka and Sora Fukuda of Japan 6-3, 6-4 in the doubles final. Yadlapalli and Zheng, the top seeds, beat No. 2 seed I-hsuan Cho of Taiwan and Zhanlan Wei of China 6-2, 6-4 to take the girls doubles title.

At the ITF Grade 4 in Guadeloupe, Kariann Pierre-Louis claimed her first ITF singles title, and also took the doubles championship.  The 16-year-old from Florida halted the winning streak of Hurricane Tyra Black in the semifinals, then the No. 3 seed defeated Clara Froget of France 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 in the final.  Pierre-Louis and Naomi Waters, the top seeds, won the doubles over No. 3 seeds Black and Julia Goldberg 6-4, 6-2. 

Top seed Andres Andrade of Ecuador won both boys titles, beating No. 4 seed Morgan Dill 6-0, 6-7(5), 6-0 in the singles final and teaming with Jason Legall to win the doubles.  The top seeds beat Sean Burnette and Andrew Quiros of El Salvador 6-2, 6-3 in the final.