North Carolina Women, Oklahoma Men Keep No. 1 Rankings; Tiafoe, Paul Advance at Savannah Challenger; Rublev Beats Verdasco in Barcelona

Next Tuesday, beginning at 5 p.m. EDT, the NCAA Division I selections will be revealed at ncaa.com. Today's rankings are the last ones to be released before that announcement, although the rankings the committee will use to make its decisions will be published Friday, May 1st.

The undefeated North Carolina women continue to occupy the No. 1 spot, as do the Oklahoma men, with both teams playing their conference tournaments this weekend.

Because the Top 16 teams will host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament the weekend of May 8-10, I'm including the Top 20 this week, not the Top 10 as I usually do.  Of course these positions are likely to change as the result of the many conference championships being played this weekend.

The Top 20 women's teams:

1. North Carolina
2. Southern California
3. California-Berkeley
4. Vanderbilt
5. Florida
6. UCLA
7. Georgia
8. Baylor
9. Texas A&M
10. Virginia
11. Oklahoma State
12. Michigan
13. Stanford
14. Alabama
15. Miami
16. Texas Tech
17. TCU
18. Ohio State
19. Pepperdine
20. Mississippi

The Top 20 men's teams:
1. Oklahoma
2. Baylor
3. Texas A&M
4. Illinois
5. Virginia
6. TCU
7. Georgia
8. Southern California
9. Duke
10. Texas
11. Wake Forest
12. Ohio State
13. Mississippi
14. Virginia Tech
15. UCLA
16. North Carolina
17. Texas Tech
18. Mississippi State
19. South Florida
20. Columbia

For the complete list of automatic qualifiers for the NCAAs, see this page at the ITA website.

In the individual rankings, UCLA's Robin Anderson stayed at No. 1 on the women's side, but the men's No. 1 spot, which has been fluid throughout the year, belongs again to Baylor's Julian Lenz.

The women's singles Top 10:
1. Robin Anderson, UCLA
2. Carol Zhao, Stanford
3. Maegan Manasse, Cal-Berkeley
4. Brooke Austin, Florida
5. Julia Elbaba, Virginia
6. Lauren Herring, Georgia
7. Jamie Loeb, North Carolina
8. Sydney Campbell, Vanderbilt
9. Julia Jones, Mississippi
10. Stephanie Wagner, Miami

The women's doubles Top 4:
1. Erin Routliffe and Maya Jansen, Alabama
2. Carol Zhao and Taylor Davidson, Stanford
3. Catherine Harrison and Kyle McPhillips, UCLA
4. Beatrice Gumulya and Jessy Rompies, Clemson

The men's Top 10 in singles:
1. Julian Lenz, Baylor
2. Axel Alvarez, Oklahoma
3. Mackenzie McDonald, UCLA
4. Soren Hess-Olesen, Texas
5. Andrew Harris, Oklahoma
6. Sebastian Stiefelmeyer, Louisville
7. Ryan Shane, Virginia
8. Gonzales Austin, Vanderbilt
9. Quentin Monaghan, Notre Dame
10. Dominik Koepfer, Tulane

The men's Top 4 in doubles:
1. Ben Wagland and Austin Smith, Georgia
2. Luca Corinteli and Ryan Shane, Virginia
3. Roberto Quiroz and Yannick Hanfmann, Southern California
4. Kevin Metka and Ralf Steinbach, Ohio State

The complete rankings can be found at the ITA website.  Or if you prefer all on one page, see this post at College Tennis Today.

Tuesday was a big day for teenaged boys in ATP action, starting off with World No. 1 junior Andrey Rublev's 7-6(4), 6-3 win over Fernando Verdasco in the first round of the Barcelona tournament.  The 17-year-old Russian, who qualified for the main draw, already has won main draw ATP matches in Delray Beach and Miami this year and should break into the Top 300 with his win today.

In the $50,000 Savannah Challenger, wild card Frances Tiafoe and qualifier Tommy Paul both picked up victories.  Tiafoe saved a match point at 4-5, 30-40 in his 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(3) win over Vincent Millot of France and Paul picked up his first Challenger victory in his first attempt, beating ATP 101 and No. 2 seed Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium 7-6(6), 6-7(5), 6-3.  Paul double faulted on set point at 6-5 in the first set tiebreaker, but he recovered, and was the more consistent player throughout what was obviously a very close match.  When it came time to serve out the match, Paul again stayed calm. He hit an ace to make it 30-15, and calmly dealt with Bemelmans' volley winner on the next point with a "too good."  He then hit a second ace, 119 up the T for his first match point and finished with a third-shot backhand winner to close it out.  Paul will play Bjorn Fratangelo in the second round, while Tiafoe meets No. 6 seed Frank Dancevic of Canada.

Two other teenagers, No. 4 seed Hyeon Chung of Korea and No. 8 seed Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan, also advanced to the second round in Savannah.  Wild card Stefan Kozlov was defeated by top seed Tim Smyczek 6-4, 6-1 this evening.

At the $50,000 Challenger in Brazil, wild card Orlando Luz advanced to the second round with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win over No. 8 seed and ATP 199 Guido Andreozzi of Argentina.  The world's No. 2 junior will play friend and frequent doubles partner Marcelo Zormann, also a wild card, in the second round.  Luz and Zormann won the Wimbledon boys title last year over Kozlov and Rublev.