Iowa High School Tennis

Tomorrow is the last day of the 2019 high school tennis season, well I guess we do have Co-Ed state next week! Regardless, four teams in Columbus, Xavier, Shenandoah and Wahlert have a chance at a team state title tomorrow. Columbus is the defending state champions and enter the final four as the #1 seed. They are undefeated this year and have wins over both Wahlert and Xavier.

Defending Champions Iowa City West is back into the field and joined by Ames, Dowling and Cedar Falls. This MVC/CIML clash of semi-finals should be some really good tennis tomorrow and I really think all of these teams have a chance to lift the trophy tomorrow afternoon. It has been a crazy fun year, lots of great results throughout the season and we even have almost had an indoor season this spring! Ladies and Gentleman, buckle up because this is one of the last days of the 2019 season.

Defending Champs are back! Both defending champs are back into their same draw as they won a year ago. Charoenkul of Faifield enters the singles tournament as the #2 seed this year. The new rule change went into effect and allowed Charoenkul to be seeded as she was the state champion in 2018 but lost to teammate Yana Gaskell in the district final this year. In the doubles draw, Taylor Hogan from Waterloo Columbus is back to defend her 2018 crown but brings in a new partner in Elysse Trost. Hogan/Trost enter the tournament as the #1 seed. Hogan, for people that may not know, is an excellent gymnast where she is believed to continue gymnastics at the collegiate level.

Two Defending State Champions!

Final Four time! 4 teams, 1 champion. Des Moines is the home of the tournament play tomorrow and I know these four teams are ready to roll. It doesn't look like it will be very hot with temperatures in the 60s, and hopefully no rain! I am excited for a great day of play tomorrow and a new champion will be crowned!

CLASS 2A TEAM STATE FINAL FOUR!!! The grand finale is here!!! 4 teams remain in the quest to win it all and finish as the lone victor. Let's take a look at the semifinal match-ups and analyze who is favored at each position.

Just one more sleep until the boys state tournaments begin! Lots of fun headlines this year and I expect all four draws to provide some great tennis and competitive matches. 2ARedwood and myself dive into a quick round table discussion on a couple of different categories for this years tournaments! - Iowa HS Tennis

In the words of Hilary Clinton in 2016, "I'm just chillin' in Cedar Rapids 😎"...if you haven't seen the Snapchat video of Hilary saying this quirky phrase on the campaign trail, I'd highly recommend you look it up. Like Hilary on that day,  the Class 2A state qualifiers will be "chillin in Cedar Rapids" on May 24-25 at Veterans Memorial Tennis Center. This year's doubles and singles tournaments are filled with great competitors from across the state including a handful of past individual champions, six freshmen, and a number of place winners who came extremely close to grabbing gold in last year's state tournament. Thanks to districts being the most balanced they have been in a long time, we should be looking at at an unusually deep pool of competitors this year. Let's take a look at the highlights of the tournament and of each bracket. Left: Tim Ellis, Ames; Middle: Ty Sherman and Rami Scheetz, CR Washington; Right: Jack Wenzel,...

This year's doubles and singles tournaments are filled with great competitors from across the state including a handful of past individual champions, six freshmen, and a number of place winners who came extremely close to grabbing gold in last year's state tournament. Thanks to districts being the most balanced they have been in a long time, we should be looking at at an unusually deep pool of competitors this year. Let's take a look at the highlights of the tournament and of each bracket. Left: Jon Lansing ('18) CR Xavier, Ryan and Luke Willis ('18) Waverly-Shell Rock

We are really hitting the post season grind now! What an eventful weekend with some teams already into the final four, some teams haven't even played a post season meet yet. To get you caught up on all the action, I put together some quick headlines over the past few days, as well as links to the live updated tournament brackets. This week there will be boys singles and doubles state tournament previews. A roundtable feature where myself and my (newly named: 2A Redwood) guest will answer some questions about this years state tournament. As always, if you have comments, corrections, or just want to talk tennis, comment here, email iowahstennis@gmail.com or message me on twitter!

Road to the Final Four - 1A Boys

May 14th Blog Power Rankings...

2A Boys Team 1A Boys Team 2A Girls Team 1A Girls Team 2A Boys Singles 2A Boys Singles Consolation 2A Boys Doubles 2A Boys Doubles Consolation 1A Boys Singles 1A Boys Singles Consolation 1A Boys Doubles 1A Boys Doubles Consolation 2A Girls Singles 2A Girls Doubles 1A Girls Singles 1A Girls Doubles

Boy, has it been a busy Friday! Three districts were able to complete play on Wednesday with the remaining 13 sites in progress today. I'll throw in some form of recap for districts next week, but I am here for the Girls regionals right now. It's been a busy week, so this won't be super in depth, but a little something to get you prepared for what will be happening for this weekend and the next.

As postseason officially kicks off today with three boys districts underway today. I had got a request with a great question about how postseason works. Below I have done my best to explain how the postseason works for both the boys and girls as they are slightly different. To the best of my ability, this is what I understand postseason play to include.

May 7th Blog Power Rankings...

The first leg of postseason play has arrived, and we are excited to dive in and discuss wheat we think will happen in each district. But first, let's breakdown the ramifications of districts for anyone not familiar. On Wednesday, May 8, 24/48 teams will advance to substate and 48/288 players will punch their ticket to the individual state tournament in cedar rapids. With so few entrants (16 for singles and doubles), many well-deserving players are bound to be left out. But unlike previous years, state administrators did a great job of disbursing talent across districts and avoiding awkward situations such as Jiung Jung playing Joe Hoff in both the districts and the state finals in 2016-2017, or #2 CR Washington being paired in the same district with #1 Iowa City West in 2017.

We love Iowa High School Tennis and I am continuing to push along and give you guys some type of content! Preview #3 is here where we take a peak at the 2A Girls Ind. Regionals. Some names you might know, some names might be new. No matter who, this will be the start of a fun post season where defending champions start title defenses, first time state qualifies and more state champions will be crowned. May 15 is the first step in the post season grind.

The first of the Women's side, we have 1A individual regionals. For those of you that do not know the format, I will break it down. Unlike the boys side, this is strictly individual, there are no team implications at these regionals. There are eight regions and teams are allowed to enter two singles entries and two doubles entries. Players that reach the finals of the region have qualified for the state tournament. Region winners are eligible to be seeded. A runner-up is able to be seeded in the following circumstance, and you can read about that rule change  here.  May the odds ever be in your favor.