Three Cavalier tennis players advance in NCAA singles tournament

Thursday was the "All-American" round in Waco, Texas. The day's winners in singles would be guaranteed selection as Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-Americans by advancing to the third round of the tournament. Here's how the four remaining Hoos did:

Danielle Collins

Collins overcame a rocky start against Ronit Yurovsky of Michigan to move into the third round. After breaking Yurovsky's serve to jump out to a 4-2 lead, Collins lost 4 straight games to drop the first set. She came back strong and notched a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 win.

She advances to play Jennifer Brady of UCLA at 11:00 EDT today. Brady primarily played at the #3 line for the national runners-up this season, and is one of three UCLA players in the Round of 16. Collins, the defending women's singles champion, was already guaranteed All-American status by virtue of being seeded.

Julia Elbaba

Elbaba's opponent, Chanelle Van Nguyen of UCLA had the latest night of any of the players in the singles bracket Wednesday. She was in the last match on the courts when lighting forced her and her opponent to move inside and play their third set, which Van Nguyen won 6-0. The late night was no problem for her against Elbaba, and the Bruins' #2 player strolled to a 6-2, 6-0 win over the Virginia junior.

Elbaba was also seeded in the tournament, and thus an All-American.

Ryan Shane

Benjamin Lock of Florida State will probably be just fine if he never sees Ryan Shane on the other side of the net for a while. For the second time in a month, Lock had no answers against the Cavaliers' top player, and got smacked 6-2, 6-1.

Shane advances to play Jeremy Efferding of Texas A&M for the second time in a week. Shane won the first set in their match on Saturday, but Virginia clinched the dual match midway through their second set. Shane and Efferding are scheduled to take the court at noon, EDT.

Shane is now the third-highest seed remaining in the tournament, behind #5 seed Sebastian Stiefelmeyer of Louisville and #7 seed Noah Rubin of Wake Forest. (ACC, ACC!)

Thai-Son Kwiatkowski

Kwiatkowski would have been named an All-American if he stayed ranked in the Top 20 nationally based on his victories during the team event, but he etched it in stone by defeating Harvard's Denis Nguyen 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. Kwiatkowski advances to play Baylor's Tony Lupieri. Lupieri was Baylor's #2 player during the team event, but he knocked out the tournament's #1 seed, Axel Alvarez Llamas of Oklahoma yesterday in straight sets. The match begins at 12:30 EDT.

Ryan Shane/Luca Corinteli

The lone Virginia doubles team still alive lost their opening round match against Harry Jadun and John Patrick Mullane of Michigan State, 6-1, 6-7(4), 7-5. Shane and Corinteli will both be named All-Americans in doubles for entering the tournament as the #3 seed. If you want someone to root for in the doubles tournament, former Cavalier Jordan Daigle, now at LSU, won his first round match with partner Boris Arias.