Rice University
NCAA Singles & Doubles Championships
Rosa Falls in NCAA Singles Second Round
5/22/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
May 22, 2008
TULSA, Okla. - No. 14 ranked Bruno Rosa erased a trio of match points before falling in a hard-fought 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 decision against No. 22 ranked Erling Tveit of Ole Miss in the NCAA Singles Championships Round of 32 Thursday afternoon at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the University of Tulsa campus.
Tveit moves onto the Round of 16 and a match-up with top-seeded Somdev Devvarman of Virginia, a straight-set winner against Boise State's Clancy Shields.
Rosa finishes with a 25-7 singles mark and earned All-America status as a sophomore after being a Top 16 national seed at the NCAA Singles Championships.
"The bottom line was that I didn't play the big points well enough to win today," Rosa said. "He (Tveit) is a good player and deserved to win. I'm really happy with my season as a whole. I continued to improve as the season progressed. It's something that I can build on heading into next year."
After fending off three match points on his serve, Rosa had an opportunity to send the match into a third set tiebreaker. A double fault coupled with a pair of backhand errors gave Tveit the clinching break.
Tveit took control of the opening set with an early break and grabbed a 3-0 lead before Rosa fought back to even the score at 4-4. Tveit regrouped and broke Rosa to claim the opening frame, 6-4.
Rosa rallied to fire off four of the first five points of the second set to gain an early break. The Brazilian never looked back and held serve five times en route to a 6-4 win to level the match at one set apiece.
Rice's No. 1 doubles pair of Christoph Müller and Ralph Knupfer face off against Florida State's Jean-Yves Aubone and Clint Bowles at 5pm in the Round of 32 of the NCAA Doubles Championships.
RiceOwls.com will have live scoring along with live video streaming available for both the singles and doubles championships.
