Rice University
Princeton
Owls Can't Shake Slow Start in Loss to Tigers
2/10/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
by Chuck Pool (cpool@rice.edu) -
PRINCETON, NJ: The Rice men's tennis team could not overcome a sluggish start in doubles and fell to Princeton 4-3 at the Jadwin Gym on Friday.
The Tigers took a page from Rice's script in 4-3 win in Houston in 2016 blitzing to match's first point in only 20 minutes, then held off a furious comeback effort in singles to win for the first time in three duals this year.
"They jumped on us right away and we never recovered in doubles," Rice head coach Efe Ustundag said. "That has been our character early in the year, but today we just had no response. Give the credit too Princeton for coming out aggressively. But as disappointing as our effort was in doubles, I was just as proud of the way we recovered and fought on every court in singles."
Faced with their second straight loss of a doubles point after opening the year winning six straight, the Owls knew they needed to win four of six singles matches to pick up the win.
Jamie Malik, David Warren and Eric Rutledge gave the Owls hopes life with wins in the first set, and they appeared to be ready to add a fourth when Tommy Bennett had multiple set points and then held a 5-1 lead in the first set tiebreaker before dropping the set.
Rice's hopes were further buoyed when Jake Hansen and Emanuel Llamas evened their matches at a set each. But those hopes came to an end when both dropped the deciding third sets.
Malik, Rutledge and Warren picked up wins for the Owls (4-4) who will look to break even on their two-match road trip when they take on Penn on Sunday at 10 a.m.
"The key to being successfully is to fight for every point," Ustundag said. "If you fight for every point and come up short, you can take some pride in knowing you contested each one. But that wasn't the case tonight. We fought for six of seven points and that was the difference.
"That's the attitude we will need to have on Sunday against a very good Penn team. We have to come ready to fight for all seven points."
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
1,3
#1 Singles Match
#2 Singles Match
#3 Singles Match
#4 Singles Match
#5 Singles Match
#6 Singles Match
Order of Finish:
4,6,5,1,3,2
Players Mentioned
