Rice University
SMU
Owls Rebound to Down No. 25 SMU
4/10/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
by Chuck Pool (cpool@rice.edu)
One day after being stunned by 64th ranked Lamar on the road, the Rice men's tennis team responded to the challenge with a resounding 4-2 win over No. 25 SMU at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Sunday, part of a sweep of top 30 teams by the Owls. The Rice women downed No. 29 Tulsa in a match held simultaneously with the men's match.
The Owls rode a torrid start in doubles as Rice raced to the match's first point in only 25 minutes and then answered every challenge SMU could muster to improve to 18-9 on the season, including a 17-1 mark at home.
Rice head coach Efe Ustundag had worried that his Owls might be looking past the Cardinals with the Mustangs looming on Sunday and those fears were validated in a 4-1 loss. But 24 hours later, he saw his team respond in impressive fashion.
"Yesterday we went to play a pretty talented Lamar team and we got handled," Ustundag said. "Lamar played very well and they jumped on us early and tested us and we just did not have the will. This morning it was all about the guys really challenging themselves about how to respond to yesterday's loss
"This was all about character today and how we were going we were going to go into the last few matches including the conference tournament. They (the Owls) took it to a whole new level. We jumped on a SMU early and completely took them out of their game. Within 25 minutes the doubles point was over and what I loved about the rest of the match was that every player really fought and gave everything they had. We were in position on a couple courts to maybe win the matches quicker, but SMU made a great push to come back. But on some of the courts where we looked down we made a great comeback as well. At three, four and five we were down a set, but we came back to win two and were up 5-3 in the third when we clinched," he added.
The Mustangs came into Sunday with a 45-17 record in doubles, but the Owls stormed out of the gate to take the first point of the day.
Adam Gustafsson and Jamie Malik stormed to a 6-1 win on court two in doubles and moments later Tommy Bennett and David Warren nabbed the point with a 6-0 win over SMU's 24th ranked team of Hunter and Yates Johnson. It was Bennett and Warren's second straight win over a ranked doubles opponent after their 6-2 win over Lamar's 41st ranked tandem on Saturday.
Malik maintained his momentum in singles, racing to 6-2 first set win over Hunter Johnson, who entered the match ranked 48th nationally. He fought off Hunter Johnson's charge in the second set to force a tiebreaker. Malik took a 5-1 lead, and then was forced to fight off a set point before emerging with an 8-6 win.
While SMU won four of six first sets in singles, the Mustangs could only close one of those matches out, while Jake Hansen and David Warren battled back to provide the final two points for the Owls to clinch.
Hansen shook off a tiebreak loss in the first set to post a 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-1 win over Markus Kerner for the third point of the day. Warren came back from a 7-5 first set loss to win 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 win to clinch the match and improve to 14-2 in dual singles.
The Owls will be back on the courts at George R. Brown on Thursday when they host Texas A&M Corpus Christi at 5 p.m. They wrap up the regular season on Sunday when they host Tulane at 2 p.m.
Players Mentioned
