Men's tennis regroups, trashes Aggies
Just when it seemed that the wheels had fallen off of the men's tennis team's season, the repairman showed up in the guise of Texas A&M University. On a tense senior night at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium last Wednesday, No. 24 Rice defeated the 21st-ranked Aggies 4-3 to patch their wounds from back-to-back losses against Conference USA foes.While the losses to No. 9 University of Tulsa and No. 60 Southern Methodist University may have squashed Rice's hopes at hosting an NCAA Regional, the Owls, currently 13-7 on the year, will get a chance to redeem themselves in the upcoming C-USA Tournament. Rice will enter the tournament, scheduled for April 18-20 in Dallas, as the No. 2 seed for the second consecutive year.
However, Rice hopes its result this season is better than that of its last two campaigns - the Owls have fallen to the University of Tulsa in the championship match the past two years. This year, the Golden Hurricane, who beat the Owls 4-1 on April 2, look like the team to beat once again: Tulsa has won 13 of its last 15 matches behind stellar play from No. 24 Arnau Brugues.
If the Owls manage to escape the only top 10 team in C-USA, they will still have a full palette of other opponents to contend with. Southern Methodist University, ranked 46th and playing in front of its home court, will be coming off a season in which they not only slammed Rice 5-0 but also beat No. 36 University of California-Berkeley and barely lost 4-3 to then-No. 9 Notre Dame. And although the final ranked team, No. 67 University of Alabama-Birmingham, may not feature anyone in the top 125, the Blazers went a remarkable 4-0 in conference play during the regular season.
If there is anything positive to be culled from Rice's recent cold stretch, it is that they recently had the opportunity to scout their competition first-hand. Of course, the same could be said for the two teams they recently faced, but assistant coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) said it may be difficult for their opponents to earn
repeat success.
"Both [Tulsa and SMU] are good, but they are very beatable," Ustundag said. "It's never easy to beat the same team twice in one year, but at the same time, the confidence will be on their side as we match up. We've got to go out there to prove [...] that we are better, and we are
a top 16 team."
If the Owls are to have any sort of shot at winning next week, they will need to return to the form they displayed before their contest with the Golden Hurricane, which was moved from Jake Hess Tennis Stadium to the Downtown Club at the Met because of rain. Rice was coming off a three-match winning streak before running into the Tulsa lineup, which grabbed wins at the top two spots for a 2-0 lead.
After Will Gray stretched the lead to 3-0 with a 6-4, 7-6 (6) win over sophomore Chong Wang, sophomore Dennis Polyakov got Rice on the board with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory. Senior Filip Zivojinovic blazed out to a first-set win, but his opponent, Albert Sottocorno, took nine of the next ten games to seal the 4-1 triumph for Tulsa.
Four days later, Rice got a glimpse of what the conference tournament will be like by traveling to Dallas, Texas, to take on SMU. The Mustangs, ranked 60th at the time, looked to be an easy target for the higher-ranked Owls, but SMU came out quick with two wins in doubles to take the 1-0 advantage.
Before the Owls had a chance to regroup in singles, the Mustangs rattled off four consecutive straight-set wins to hand Rice arguably its worst defeat of the season.
Returning to Jake Hess on Wednesday against Texas A&M, the Owls began their final homestand of the year in strong fashion, but could not put together enough rallies to clinch a tough doubles point.
Singles, however, was another story. After sophomore Bruno Rosa, ranked 27th in the nation, stymied No. 15 Conor Pollock, the two teams split matches to knot the score at 2-2. No. 49 junior Christoph Müller put No. 90 Will Spencer on the backburner with a tiebreaker win. Polyakov then clinched the match with a gutsy, three-set victory.
"There were a couple of tight sets and we came back with the big shots." Ustundag said. "We came out and we were playing with some pride today.
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