Owls Confident Heading into LSU Regional
5/7/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
May 7, 2009
LSU Regional Tournament Central
The 34th-ranked Rice Owls are headed into familiar territory for their first-round match in the 2009 NCAA Men's Tennis Tournament, and senior Christoph Müller says the team is ready to take on the Tigers and their passionate fans.
Rice will meet 28th-ranked LSU at 1 p.m. on Friday in the second match of the LSU Regional. Ole Miss, the second overall seed in the tournament, will face Alcorn State at 10:30 a.m. in the first match of the day. The Owls are playing in their seventh consecutive NCAA tournament and have advanced past the first round in four of the last six years.
"LSU has great fans and I know they will be excited for the Regional," Müller said. "It helps us that we have already played there this year. That was a close match (Rice fell to LSU 4-3 on February 7) and our team has grown so much since then. We've had some great wins on the road this year and I know how close we are to really showing our potential as a team. If we play the way we can, we can beat LSU," he added.
The Owls own a pair of road wins this season over teams ranked in the Top 20. They defeated Miami (ranked 17th at the time), 4-3 on January 25 and then closed out their regular season schedule by defeating then #12 Texas A&M on April 13.
The Owls followed that defeat of the Aggies by reaching the finals of the Conference USA Tournament, only to fall to Tulsa in the finals for the fourth consecutive year. "The conference tournament was rough, because we were also studying for finals that week," Müller noted. "The other teams didn't have that hanging over them. But now that finals are over, we've had almost two weeks to just play tennis and prepare for this weekend," he added.
Müller is a four-year veteran of the NCAA team tournament and he heads into his final appearance with a greater appreciation of the opportunity to play at this level. He is joined at the top of the lineup by junior Bruno Rosa and fellow senior Tobias Scheil, but recognizes the need to pass his experiences on to the Owls three freshmen (Isamu Tachibana, Sam Garforth-Bles, Christian Saravia) who will be making their NCAA Tournament debuts.
"I don't know that I realized what an accomplishment it was to even reach the NCAA Tournament when I was younger," he said. "But it's obviously special. I want our younger players to understand what this means, but I also don't want them to lose their focus on the match. They all played there in February, so I don't think the crowd will be a factor. We are confident and ready to go," he added.
Players Mentioned
