Rice University
Texas
Texas Holds Off Owls
2/21/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
by Chuck Pool (cpool@rice.edu)
One day after an emotional win in doubles provided the ignition for a win over a higher ranked opponent, the Rice men's tennis team seemed to be following the same script. But the 24th ranked Texas Longhorns took the doubles point in a tiebreaker and carried that momentum over into singles to take a 4-0 win over Rice at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Sunday.
Texas (6-5) won for the 10th consecutive time against the Owls (9-2), who saw their eight match home winning streak come to an end in front of a crowd estimated at 350.
"I'm very proud of the effort we gave today," Rice head coach Efe Ustundag said. "There were times in each of the matches when I felt we didn't handle the presser as well as we should have. We didn't take care of certain situations and it got away from us. There were two or three matches where we didn't handle the adversity well as I would have liked."
Texas opened the pursuit for the match's first point with a 6-2 win on court one, but the battles on the remaining courts came down to the wire. On court three, Rice's freshmen duo of Jake Hansen and Emanuel Llamas and Texas' Harrison Scott and Rodrigo Banzer were trading service breaks through the first seven games. Llamas broke that streak in the eighth game, holding serve and then the Rice pair used a fourth straight break to win 6-3.
Just as they had 24 hours earlier vs. Princeton, Rice's Tommy Bennett and Jamie Malik, found the point coming down to a tiebreaker. However they could not repeat their magic in the extra session, dropping a 7-5 decision to George Goldhoff and Julian Zlobinsky to give Texas a 1-0 lead.
The Longhorns carried their momentum into singles, winning four of six first sets in singles. Rice was able to send four matches to third sets, but Texas combined straight set wins on courts two and five with a three-set win on six to clinch the match.
"One positive we take from today is the knowledge that the expectation is now much higher, both from ourselves and from the great crowds that came out this weekend to watch us play. Everybody expects us to win these matches now," Ustundag said.
"The goal going forward is to learn how to maintain our momentum and if it does start to slip away, to learn how to put a stop to it and get back our swagger," he continued. " Everybody is contributing, but often it's been at different times. We're yet to play six across and have a great effort on every court. It's exciting to think about it happening, but it's something we have to keep working towards," he added.
The Owls will be back on the home courts at GRBTC next weekend when they open C-USA play by hosting UAB, Southern Miss and UTSA.
Players Mentioned
