The SEC is showing up strong in the ITA Division I Men’s Singles Preseason Rankings. All five of the top singles players hail from SEC schools. The Gators are the sole SEC school to place two in the top five with No. 2 Sam Riffice and No. 4 Duarte Vale.
The top spot went to Kentucky standout and ITA National Player of the Year Liam Draxl. Draxl finished the 2021 season ranked No. 1 nationally after reaching the singles semifinals at the NCAA Championships. Draxl was featured in every ranking during the 2021 season and held the top spot in the final five rankings. Last season, he notched two wins over two players ranked No. 1 in the country.
Returning for his senior year, Florida’s Sam Riffice slides into the No. 2 spot. Riffice ended his junior campaign with a NCAA Singles title. He came back in the championship match to defeat Daniel Rodrigues and bring home the third singles title in program history to Gainesville. After spending his summer competing on the USTA Collegiate Summer Team, Riffice competed in the 2021 US Open. He fell in the first round to Grigor Dimitrov (ATP 18). Joining him in the top five of the rankings is teammate Duarte Vale. Vale checks in at No. 4. Vale led the Gators at the top of the lineup all season. He finished with a 17-6 record and was named an ITA Singles All-American for the second time in his career.
Coming off a stellar sophomore season, South Carolina’s Daniel Rodrigues claims the No. 3 spot in the preseason rankings. Rodrigues had a record breaking season for the Gamecocks. He became the first player to be ranked No. 1 and only the second player to reach the NCAA singles finals.
Tennessee’s Adam Walton rounds out the top five of the preseason rankings. Walton was a key player for the Vols last season. He led the team at the No. 1 singles spot and finished with a 22-11 record. During the NCAA Team Championship, Walton went 4-0 at No. 1 singles which earned him All-NCAA Tournament honors.
The ITA Division I Men’s Preseason Doubles Rankings and ITA Division I Men’s Newcomers were also released Tuesday.
ITA Division I Men’s Rankings
Top 125 Preseason National Singles
Administered by the ITA
September 7, 2021
| Rank | Player | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liam Draxl | Kentucky |
| 2 | Sam Riffice | Florida |
| 3 | Daniel Rodrigues | University of South Carolina |
| 4 | Duarte Vale | Florida |
| 5 | Adam Walton | University of Tennessee |
| 6 | Johannus Monday | University of Tennessee |
| 7 | Matias Soto | Baylor |
| 8 | Luc Fomba | TCU |
| 9 | Adrian Boitan | Baylor |
| 10 | Eliot Spizzirri | University of Texas |
| 11 | Finn Reynolds | Ole Miss |
| 12 | Trent Bryde | University of Georgia |
| 13 | Gabriel Diallo | University of Kentucky |
| 14 | Andy Andrade | Florida |
| 15 | Philip Henning | University of Georgia |
| 16 | Connor Thomson | University of South Carolina |
| 17 | Micah Braswell | University of Texas |
| 18 | Juan Carlos Aguilar | TCU |
| 19 | Tyler Stice | Auburn University |
| 20 | Matej Vocel | Ohio State |
| 21 | Nikola Slavic | Ole Miss |
| 22 | Eduardo Nava | Wake Forest |
| 23 | Hamish Stewart | University of Georgia |
| 24 | Ronnie Hohmann | LSU |
| 25 | Axel Nefve | University of Notre Dame |
| 26 | Marcus McDaniel | Georgia Tech |
| 27 | Florian Broska | Mississippi State |
| 28 | August Holmgren | University of San Diego |
| 29 | Martim Prata | University of Tennessee |
| 30 | Tyler Zink | Oklahoma State University |
| 31 | Andres Martin | Georgia Tech |
| 32 | Jonas Ziverts | University of Arizona |
| 33 | Blaise Bicknell | Florida |
| 34 | Jeffrey Von Der Schulenburg | University of Virginia |
| 35 | Gustaf Strom | University of Arizona |
| 36 | Nemanja Malesevic | Mississippi State |
| 37 | Kody Pearson | University of Tulsa |
| 38 | Francisco Rocha | Middle Tennessee |
| 39 | Raphael Lambling | University of South Carolina |
| 40 | Siphosothando Montsi | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| 41 | Ben Sigouin | North Carolina |
| 42 | George Harwell | Vanderbilt University |
| 43 | Sander Jong | TCU |
| 44 | Brian Cernoch | North Carolina |
| 45 | Iñaki Montes | University of Virginia |
| 46 | Mason Beiler | University of Oklahoma |
| 47 | Chase Ferguson | University of South Florida |
| 48 | Arthur Fery | Stanford University |
| 49 | Toby Samuel | University of South Carolina |
| 50 | Patrick Kaukovalta | University of Alabama |
| 51 | Garrett Johns | Duke University |
| 52 | Fabien Salle | Arizona State |
| 53 | Dimitri Badra | ETSU |
| 54 | Davide Tortora | Mississippi State |
| 55 | Nicolas Rousset | Arkansas |
| 56 | James Story | University of South Carolina |
| 57 | Olle Wallin | Texas Tech University |
| 58 | Siem Woldeab | University of Texas |
| 59 | Josh Goodger | Florida |
| 60 | Axel Geller | Stanford University |
| 61 | Richard Ciamarra | University of Texas |
| 62 | Noah Schachter | Texas A&M |
| 63 | Emmanuel Coste | UC Irvine |
| 64 | Cleeve Harper | University of Texas |
| 65 | Cannon Kingsley | Ohio State |
| 66 | Joao Ceolin | UTSA |
| 67 | Barnaby Smith | Florida State |
| 68 | Stefan Dostanic | University of Southern California |
| 69 | Magnus Johnson | Florida Gulf Coast University |
| 70 | Lleyton Cronje | UCF |
| 71 | Joshua Lapadat | University of Kentucky |
| 72 | Clement Chidekh | University of Washington |
| 73 | Sven Lah | Baylor |
| 74 | James Davis | University of Denver |
| 75 | Tomas Jirousek | TCU |
| 76 | David Stevenson | Memphis |
| 77 | Ryan Goetz | University of Virginia |
| 78 | Ondrej Styler | University of Michigan |
| 79 | Matthis Ross | Texas A&M |
| 80 | Teodor Giusca | Clemson University |
| 81 | Jake Fearnley | TCU |
| 82 | Rafael Izquierdo Luque | NC State |
| 83 | Jeremie Casabon | Vanderbilt University |
| 84 | Pat Harper | University of Tennessee |
| 85 | Loris Pourroy | Florida State |
| 86 | Ben Shelton | Florida |
| 87 | James Trotter | Ohio State |
| 88 | Kento Yamada | UCF |
| 89 | Andrew Fenty | University of Michigan |
| 90 | Joshua Charlton | Oregon |
| 91 | Pierce Rollins | Texas A&M |
| 92 | Alberto Colas | Mississippi State |
| 93 | Bar Botzer | University of Virginia |
| 94 | Steven Forman | Northwestern University |
| 95 | Emile Hudd | University of Tennessee |
| 96 | Jim Hendrikx | Samford University |
| 97 | Vito Tonejc | DePaul University |
| 98 | Franco Capalbo | University of Utah |
| 99 | JJ Tracy | Ohio State |
| 100 | Alex Rotsaert | Stanford University |
| 101 | Karl Poling | Princeton |
| 102 | Alex Martinez | University of Oklahoma |
| 103 | Mattias Siimar | Florida |
| 104 | Chris Edge | Middle Tennessee |
| 105 | Francois Musitelli | University of Kentucky |
| 106 | Henry von der Schulenburg | Harvard |
| 107 | Bradley Frye | University of Southern California |
| 108 | Alan Rubio | UCF |
| 109 | Stijn Slump | Middle Tennessee |
| 110 | Alex Kotzen | Columbia |
| 111 | Lukas Greif | Florida |
| 112 | Tristan Boyer | Stanford University |
| 113 | Kyle Frankel | Elon |
| 114 | Patrick Maloney | University of Michigan |
| 115 | Chris Rodesch | University of Virginia |
| 116 | Finn Bass | Baylor |
| 117 | Daniel De Jonge | Pepperdine |
| 118 | Drew Baird | UCLA |
| 119 | Lodewijk Weststrate | University of Southern California |
| 120 | Andrew Zhang | Duke University |
| 121 | Ilgiz Valiev | Texas Tech University |
| 122 | Blake Croyder | University of Georgia |
| 123 | Marcus Ferreira | Vanderbilt University |
| 124 | Yuta Kikuchi | California |
| 125 | Tim Zeitvogel | Pepperdine |
