Third time not the charm for men's tennis

By Casey Michel     5/15/08 7:00pm

This was not supposed to happen. Not again. This was supposed to be the year that the men's tennis team finally got over the hump known as the University of Tulsa. After succumbing to superior Golden Hurricane squads in the Conference USA Championship match each of the last two seasons, No. 24 Rice traveled to the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, on April 20 to battle once more the team that has become its chief tournament rival.While Rice's past two squads always seemed to be lacking a certain key component, the 2008 version brought all the necessary pieces to the table: A dominant No. 1 in 14th-ranked Bruno Rosa, a talented doubles tandem in No. 22 senior Ralph Knupfer and junior Christoph Muller, and, as evidenced by a 11-7 record against ranked opponents, a knack for coming through in the matches that mattered most.

However, the Owls came into their April 20 contest with more than a two-year-old chip on their shoulders. A few weeks earlier, on April 2,

Rice had encountered its first conference action against none other than then-No. 12 Tulsa. The Owls had been riding a three-match winning streak coming into the home contest and looked to continue their run against the best team in conference. But the Golden Hurricane, who themselves were in the midst of a brief winning streak, held the upper hand with a 4-1 drubbing over the

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handcuffed Owls.

So with memories of failed C-USA Championship attempts and a regular-season thumping fresh in their minds, the Owls had one goal as they entered the conference tournament April 18: To take down Tulsa. Second-seeded Rice opened the tournament in convincing fashion, nullifying East Carolina's hopes with a 5-0 victory.

The Owls then moved to the semifinals to face off with host SMU, then ranked 47th and looking to capitalize on the home-court advantage. The three-seed had given Rice fits earlier in the year with a rather embarrassing 5-0 whipping of the higher-ranked Owls, but this time around, Rice made sure not to let history repeat itself. Despite early doubles losses, a flurry of singles victories ended with Rice on top 4-2 and in position to achieve what they had set out to do as the tournament began.

With an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships, and the possibility of hosting an NCAA Regional on the line, the Owls knew they would need their strongest play of the year to overcome a Tulsa squad that boasted three ranked singles players and two ranked doubles duos.

However, Rice came meekly out of the gate as Rosa and his senior partner Filip Zivojinovic fell to Victor Kolik and Alberto Sottocorno 8-3 at No. 3. Sophomore Chong Wang and junior Tobias Scheil pushed the 38th-ranked pair of Arnau Brugues and Ricardo Soriano to the brink at No. 2 before the Tulsa twosome edged the Rice pair 8-6 in a tiebreaker.

Down 1-0 heading into singles, sophomore Dennis Polyakov scuffled with Tulsa's Ross Cunningham, a foe he had beaten in three sets in March. Cunningham would not be denied his win the second time around, however, and he picked apart Polyakov in a 6-1, 6-3 victory.

Needing to get on the board before Rice's chances slipped away, No. 50 Müller put away No. 58 Kolik in straight sets to pull the Owls back to within one. But Brugues, a two-time C-USA Player of the Year, had his way with Rosa in a 6-1, 6-4 win that put Rice on the brink of elimination. At No. 3, Knupfer repeatedly battled back against Will Gray but could never turn the corner, and he bowed out in straight sets. In an unfortunate twist, the match conjured flashbacks to the 2007 championship, when Knupfer's straight-set loss had also sealed the Owls' fate.

Assistant coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99), who has been on the bench for all of Rice's postseason losses to Tulsa, said that his squad certainly had a chance against the superior Golden Hurricane team.

"There's a reason they're top 10 in the country," Ustundag said. "We wanted to throw everything we had at them. We just needed either Ralph or Bruno to be able to push that match, and it didn't happen that way. It was a very, very similar [to 2007], but I think both teams were a little bit better than last year."

Despite this heartbreaking loss, the Owls played well enough to earn a shot at redemption. Beginning the NCAA Tournament in Austin, Texas, the Owls met No. 34 Texas Christian University last Friday and burst out to a 2-0 lead. That advantage was soon whittled away to a 3-3 tie, with the deciding match pitting junior Tobias Scheil against TCU's Casey Powers at No. 6. Making matters even more interesting, the opponents split the first two sets, and the final set entered a tiebreaker. Unlike the rest of the match, however, the tiebreaker was not close - Scheil rattled off seven straight points to put his opponent away and help Rice advance.

"The TCU match was an absolute battle," Ustundag said. "We saw that Toby had a couple of really good weeks practicing. We felt like he was a little bit more ready, and Dennis had been banged up a little bit, lost quite a few matches in a row. [We] just needed to give Toby a shot at it, and it turned out that we made the right decision."

Unfortunately for the Owls, No. 7 Texas was next in line. Although Rice had barely dropped a 4-3 Feb. 24 decision to the Longhorns earlier this season, the second match was not nearly as competitive. Texas took the match 4-0 to continue to the Sweet 16 against the very team that had knocked Rice out of its previous tournament: Tulsa.

As consolation prizes for their conference play, Rosa and Müller each received C-USA First Team nods, while Müller and Knupfer received the honor of Outstanding Doubles Team of the C-USA Championship.

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