East Coast woes beset tennis
Two weeks ago, the men's tennis team thrashed a pair of ranked opponents at home by a combined score of 12-2. Last weekend, on the road, Rice (5-3) ended up on the other side of the 12-2 score against another pair of ranked foes. What a difference a weekend can make.
Sent off on their only East Coast swing of the season, Rice found itself on the loser's end of a 7-0 match against then-No. 19 Virginia Tech University and a 5-2 contest with then- No. 16 Wake Forest University. This came after a weekend of 6-1 victories over both then-No. 33 Louisiana State University and then-No. 27 University of Miami, each of which came at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.
Were these matches boiled down to their simplest, the only variable would appear to be where Rice played its opponents: The wins came in the comfort of Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, and the drubbings came on the unfamiliar turf of the Hokies (4-1) on Friday and the Demon Deacons (4-1) on Sunday.
But it's just not that simple. Senior Bruno Rosa, ranked 14th in the nation, pointed out that the difference in venues played a role - but Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are both in the top 20 for a reason.
"I don't want to take the credit away from them, because they're amazing teams, but we all feel more comfortable playing at home," Rosa said. "As far as our season is concerned, all of our matches that we played [were] better than those two matches."
The two losses were certainly the low point of the young season, and Rosa's play served as something of a microcosm for the way the weekend went. After beating a pair of individually ranked opponents two weekends ago, Rosa could not handle either of his challengers last weekend. The senior dropped straight-set matches to the Hokies' Yoann Re, currently ranked 47th, and the Demon Deacons' Tripper Carleton, currently ranked 74th.
Both of Rosa's losses came after the Owls had dropped the doubles points, and put Rice in early holes. The Owls never dug out against the Hokies - three other singles players dropped straight-set contests against their opponents - but the team's showing against Wake Forest was a bit more promising.
Staring down a 3-0 hole after junior Oscar Podlewski, ranked 116th, fell 6-3, 6-3 against the unranked Steven Forman, Rice gained traction when sophomores Michael Nuesslein and Sam Garforth-Bles each bested their opponents in two sets. Down 3-2, sophomore Isamu Tachibana battled No. 117 Iain Atkinson at No. 4, taking the first set and tangling with Atkinson in a second-set tiebreaker. Concurrently, sophomore Christian Saravia was charging back from a 3-1 second-set deficit against Danny Kreyman at No. 6, tying up the middle set after Kreyman took the opening frame.
Were Tachibana to take the tiebreaker, Rice would have tied up the game and come within a point from victory. But Atkinson stood fast and took the tiebreaker. The win reinvigorated Kreyman, and while Saravia managed to grab the second set, the Demon Deacon outlasted Saravia in the third to take the set and the win.
The Hokies and the Demon Deacons are the first top-20 opponents the Owls have faced all year and, as such, Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) said the Owls knew they would have a fight laid out before them.
"I would have liked to have seen a little better fight," Ustundag said. "Again, we could have fought as best we could and still could have come up short, but this way we didn't really give ourselves a chance to win."
And while the Owls will be heading home for their next match, it does not mean that the road gets any easier. Rice met the University of Texas, currently ranked fourth in the nation, yesterday at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. The Longhorns (6-1) came into the match after having made it to the semifinals of the ITA national Team Indoor Tournament.
Facing a team with five ranked players, it will be incumbent on the Owls to find any and all of Texas' weaknesses they can.
That is, if any even exist.
"They don't have weaknesses," Ustundag said. "It's not a lineup that possesses any holes, and they are a set of players that are good competitors on a team that will fight you to the last point. On the previous teams we beat, they had holes or they had weaknesses for individual players that they faced, so we were able to exploit those and capitalize on those. But against Texas, we're going to play players without weaknesses."
If the Owls have a shot at taking down the Longhorns, it lies in their mental toughness, the level of focus they can bring when playing in the comforts of home and how well they can bounce back from a punch.
"We have to have the mindset of just exchanging blows all day long," Ustundag said. "We won't be able to pick a side and just keep attacking that side and have our way. It's not going to happen. . It's a boxing match between two guys that are fairly equal, and who is going to be the last man standing?
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