Monday, January 28
Houston, Texas
11:00 am
Rice University
4
vs
0
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Western Michigan
Photo by: Maria Lysaker - Rice University
Owls End Homestand with Sweep
1/28/2019 3:54:00 PM | Men's Tennis
The Lead: Rice improved to 5-0 on the year by knocking off Western Michigan 4-0 at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Monday. Once again, the Owls were able to grab the early momentum in doubles and held off a determined charge by the defending MAC champions by winning a pair of first set tiebreakers in singles to roll to the win in the first meeting between the schools in men's tennis.
Doubles: Rice remained unbeaten in doubles on the season, picking up wins on courts one and three. After Western Michigan took the match on court two, Jacob Eskeland and Daniel Warren evened things with a 6-2 win on three, setting the stage for Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar to nab the point with a 6-3 win at one. After finishing the 2018 dual season at 1-21 at the third doubles line, the Owls are 5-0 this season.
Head Coach Efe Ustundag: "We felt like we had to make a couple of changes in the doubles lineup today. Sumit and Erik played a lot of tennis together last year and they gave us that grit and on-court leadership that we needed at one. I thought we played a pretty good match at #2 doubles, but Western Michigan played a great match. We had one opening in the middle of the match that they served themselves out of and then they broke us on a deuce point at 4-5. It was a good quality match and it was good to have Conrad (Russell) back in the lineup. It's a big change for us to have the quality we have playing at #3 doubles. It's nice to have the personnel to be able to move things around and be able to get results. We've tried three or four different combinations at three and they've all been successful."
Singles: While Western Michigan took a pair of first sets and sent three other opening sets to tiebreaks, Rutledge quickly added a second point for the Owls, dropping only three games. Adam Oscislawski and Eskeland prevailed in their tiebreaks to provide the final two points, while Sarkar and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz rebounded to win their second sets and Russell battled his way to a 5-5 tie in his second set to keep the Broncos off the scoreboard.
Ustundag: "It's such a big break to have someone to be able to get off the court quickly and that was veteran move by Eric to get that second point so quickly, especially bouncing back from a rough couple of days. He played great doubles and then came out and stayed on his opponent from the beginning and the second point was huge given the way the other singles matches started. If those three tiebreaks go against us and we drop five first sets, then guys might start to tighten up. Even though Sumit lost a tiebreak in the first, I felt like he was the better player in the second half of that set and he never let Opitz celebrate winning the first set by getting two quick breaks. He made some great shots in the first, but Sumit played some gritty tennis and once he realized that the longer points were going in his favor, he realized he didn't have to pull the trigger so quickly. Jacob rallied from losing a 5-3 lead in the first and falling behind in his tiebreaker to win his tiebreak and Adam kept his focus in his tiebreak as well. Conrad played a solid match, especially because he has not had a lot of high-quality practice time because of the number of matches we've played at the start. But he stayed on the court, came back from down 3-0 in the second to be at 5-5 when we clinched. We could not have drawn it up any better to wrap up the January schedule and now we have to get ready to go on the road and take on a much improved LSU team on Sunday.
Doubles: Rice remained unbeaten in doubles on the season, picking up wins on courts one and three. After Western Michigan took the match on court two, Jacob Eskeland and Daniel Warren evened things with a 6-2 win on three, setting the stage for Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar to nab the point with a 6-3 win at one. After finishing the 2018 dual season at 1-21 at the third doubles line, the Owls are 5-0 this season.
Head Coach Efe Ustundag: "We felt like we had to make a couple of changes in the doubles lineup today. Sumit and Erik played a lot of tennis together last year and they gave us that grit and on-court leadership that we needed at one. I thought we played a pretty good match at #2 doubles, but Western Michigan played a great match. We had one opening in the middle of the match that they served themselves out of and then they broke us on a deuce point at 4-5. It was a good quality match and it was good to have Conrad (Russell) back in the lineup. It's a big change for us to have the quality we have playing at #3 doubles. It's nice to have the personnel to be able to move things around and be able to get results. We've tried three or four different combinations at three and they've all been successful."
Singles: While Western Michigan took a pair of first sets and sent three other opening sets to tiebreaks, Rutledge quickly added a second point for the Owls, dropping only three games. Adam Oscislawski and Eskeland prevailed in their tiebreaks to provide the final two points, while Sarkar and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz rebounded to win their second sets and Russell battled his way to a 5-5 tie in his second set to keep the Broncos off the scoreboard.
Ustundag: "It's such a big break to have someone to be able to get off the court quickly and that was veteran move by Eric to get that second point so quickly, especially bouncing back from a rough couple of days. He played great doubles and then came out and stayed on his opponent from the beginning and the second point was huge given the way the other singles matches started. If those three tiebreaks go against us and we drop five first sets, then guys might start to tighten up. Even though Sumit lost a tiebreak in the first, I felt like he was the better player in the second half of that set and he never let Opitz celebrate winning the first set by getting two quick breaks. He made some great shots in the first, but Sumit played some gritty tennis and once he realized that the longer points were going in his favor, he realized he didn't have to pull the trigger so quickly. Jacob rallied from losing a 5-3 lead in the first and falling behind in his tiebreaker to win his tiebreak and Adam kept his focus in his tiebreak as well. Conrad played a solid match, especially because he has not had a lot of high-quality practice time because of the number of matches we've played at the start. But he stayed on the court, came back from down 3-0 in the second to be at 5-5 when we clinched. We could not have drawn it up any better to wrap up the January schedule and now we have to get ready to go on the road and take on a much improved LSU team on Sunday.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
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#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
2,3,1
#1 Singles Match
1234
Jannik Opitz / 0 [MTENWMU]
7010
664UF
#2 Singles Match
12
Lenhard Haupt / 0 [MTENWMU]
62
76
#3 Singles Match
12
Jack Randall / 0 [MTENWMU]
21
66
#4 Singles Match
1234
Matej Svjetlicic / 0 [MTENWMU]
6320
261UF
#5 Singles Match
12
Peter Kuszynski / 0 [MTENWMU]
64
76
#6 Singles Match
123
Nick Schnobel / 0 [MTENWMU]
750
55UF
Order of Finish:
3,5,2
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
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