Rice University
#5 Texas
No. 24 Men's Tennis Edged by No. 5 Texas
2/24/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Feb. 24, 2008
HOUSTON - The No. 24 Rice men's tennis team dropped a hard-fought 4-3 battle to No. 5 Texas Sunday afternoon in front of full house at Jake Hess Stadium on the Rice campus.
Rice (7-2) had its seven-match winning streak come to a close, while Texas (9-1) defeated its second Conference USA opponent of the season.
"I want to first thank our fans for making our facility a special environment to play college tennis in today," head coach Ron Smarr said. "We played hard in a close battle but give credit to Texas for winning more big points."
Rice's Bruno Rosa and Tobias Scheil held a 3-2 edge at No. 3 doubles before Dimitar Kutrovsky and Josh Zavala took control of the match winning six of the last seven games for an 8-4 win.
Texas' Hubert Chodkiewicz and Luis Diaz Barriga jumped out to a quick 3-0 advantage in the No. 2 position before Filip Zivojinovic and Chong Wang fought back to within 4-3. Chodkiewicz and Diaz Barriga regrouped for an 8-4 victory to give the Longhorns an early 1-0 lead.
Play was stopped on Center Court once the doubles point was decided between Texas' Kellen Damico and Ed Corrie against No. 12 Ralph Knupfer and Christoph Müller with the Longhorn pair ahead 4-3 on-serve.
No. 54 Kutrovsky upended No. 26 Rosa 6-2, 6-2 at the top of the lineup to extend the Texas lead to 2-0.
No. 24 Corrie held off a late second set comeback effort from No. 92 Knupfer for a 6-1, 6-4 win in the No. 3 hole to make it 3-0.
No. 88 Diaz Barriga jumped out to a quick 4-1 advantage against Zivojinovic at the No. 4 spot. Zivojinovic charged back to even the score at 5-5 before Diaz Barriga regrouped to win the opening frame at 7-5. Diaz Barriga won the last four games of the second set for a 6-3 win to clinch the match for Texas.
No. 55 Müller and No. 18 Damico traded blows at No. 2 before going to an opening set tiebreaker. Müller overcame a pair of set points and gritted out a 9-7 win in the breaker. Damico leveled the match winning the second set 6-3.
Müller snatched the early momentum in the super tiebreaker to go ahead 7-4 before Damico got back to 7-6 with back-to-back points. Müller's strong serve and ground strokes carried him to three straight points for the win to put the Owls on the board.
Wang took advantage of an early break during the first set in his match at No. 5 with Milan Mihailovic to claim the opening set 6-4. Mihailovic followed the same script for his 6-4 win in the second set. Wang fired back winning four of the first five games in the deciding set to emerge with a 6-3 win.
Dennis Polyakov shook off an early 3-0 deficit against Zavala at the bottom of the lineup to force a first set tiebreaker. Polyakov gutted out a 7-3 triumph in the breaker, but Zavala sent the match into a super tiebreaker after obtaining the second set 6-2. After Zavala took a 7-4 lead, Polyakov racked up six of the final seven points for the final margin of 4-3.
Rice heads west and opens a three-match Golden State swing at No. 50 San Diego State at 3:30pm on March 3rd. The Owls also will take on No. 6 UCLA and No. 63 UC Irvine.
Players Mentioned
