Saturday, March 23
Houston, Texas
1 p.m.
Rice University
1
vs
4
#29 Texas Tech
Photo by: Maria Lysaker - Rice University
Owls Drop Invite Opener
3/23/2019 5:28:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Texas Tech 4, Rice 1
The Lead: Rice saw its hope for early momentum dashed by a Texas Tech rally and the Red Raiders carried that momentum over into singles to take a 4-1 win over the Owls at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Saturday.
Doubles: Rice took the early advantage as Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Karol Paluch picked up a 6-3 at the third line. After Tech took the match at the second line the attention shifted to court one where Rice's 39th ranked Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar were tied 5-5 with Tech's seventh-ranked duo of Bjorn Thomson and Parker Wynn. Tech broke to serve for the point, but Rice responded with a break of its own to send the doubles point to a tiebreaker. Rutledge and Sarkar sprinted to a 6-1 lead and had two serves to clinch the point, but Thomson and Wynn staged their own rally, winning six straight points. Rutledge and Sarkar fought off four match points before falling 12-10
Singles: Sumit Sarkar won his fourth straight match to run his record to 11-4 with a straight set win at court one, but Texas Tech wrapped up the match with wins at two, four and five to close out the match.
Efe Ustundag: "We played a very good team, there is no doubt about it. It's the second time we've met and three of the singles matchups were different. We played a new doubles team at three (Karol Paluch and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz) and I thought they did a good job in staying ahead with a break and fighting out of some deuce situations. At No. 1, you're playing a top ten team and it certainly got exciting at the end. We played a game at 5-5 that wasn't aggressive enough and got broken, but then the same thing happened to them. They played it too casual at 6-5 and all the sudden we are on fire. We were going big and going smart and not giving anything up. We go up 6-1 and serving in the tiebreak. Most of the time that's all she wrote, but you have to give credit to Texas Tech. We probably should have gone bigger on those two serves, but at the end of the day, you have to make returns and they did. From there, the quality just kept improving. We responded after losing six straight points, but in the end it was one that got away. How big a difference would that point have made in the match is hard to say. I told the guys that tomorrow we will play two teams that are physically and mentally playing at a very high level. They are not going to go away. They are going to fight for every point. We don't need to play the prettiest tennis, but we need to play our most competitive tennis so far this year. We have to take care of the opportunities when they are there. Both of these teams are not going to stop coming. There are going to be tough outs. But it's a great opportunity to bounce back from this by playing a couple of teams who are going to have very good seasons this year."
Up Next: The Owls close out the 61st Ralph O'Connor Rice Invitational on Sunday by facing Dartmouth at 10 a.m. and Utah State at 5. Dartmouth is 2-0 on the weekend and can capture the team title with a win over the Owls. Utah State is 0-2 after two days of play.
Doubles: Rice took the early advantage as Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Karol Paluch picked up a 6-3 at the third line. After Tech took the match at the second line the attention shifted to court one where Rice's 39th ranked Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar were tied 5-5 with Tech's seventh-ranked duo of Bjorn Thomson and Parker Wynn. Tech broke to serve for the point, but Rice responded with a break of its own to send the doubles point to a tiebreaker. Rutledge and Sarkar sprinted to a 6-1 lead and had two serves to clinch the point, but Thomson and Wynn staged their own rally, winning six straight points. Rutledge and Sarkar fought off four match points before falling 12-10
Singles: Sumit Sarkar won his fourth straight match to run his record to 11-4 with a straight set win at court one, but Texas Tech wrapped up the match with wins at two, four and five to close out the match.
Efe Ustundag: "We played a very good team, there is no doubt about it. It's the second time we've met and three of the singles matchups were different. We played a new doubles team at three (Karol Paluch and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz) and I thought they did a good job in staying ahead with a break and fighting out of some deuce situations. At No. 1, you're playing a top ten team and it certainly got exciting at the end. We played a game at 5-5 that wasn't aggressive enough and got broken, but then the same thing happened to them. They played it too casual at 6-5 and all the sudden we are on fire. We were going big and going smart and not giving anything up. We go up 6-1 and serving in the tiebreak. Most of the time that's all she wrote, but you have to give credit to Texas Tech. We probably should have gone bigger on those two serves, but at the end of the day, you have to make returns and they did. From there, the quality just kept improving. We responded after losing six straight points, but in the end it was one that got away. How big a difference would that point have made in the match is hard to say. I told the guys that tomorrow we will play two teams that are physically and mentally playing at a very high level. They are not going to go away. They are going to fight for every point. We don't need to play the prettiest tennis, but we need to play our most competitive tennis so far this year. We have to take care of the opportunities when they are there. Both of these teams are not going to stop coming. There are going to be tough outs. But it's a great opportunity to bounce back from this by playing a couple of teams who are going to have very good seasons this year."
Up Next: The Owls close out the 61st Ralph O'Connor Rice Invitational on Sunday by facing Dartmouth at 10 a.m. and Utah State at 5. Dartmouth is 2-0 on the weekend and can capture the team title with a win over the Owls. Utah State is 0-2 after two days of play.
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Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2
#1 Singles Match
12
Tommy Mylnikov / 0 [TTU]
41
66
#2 Singles Match
12
Parker Wynn / 0 (99/-) [TTU]
66
12
#3 Singles Match
123
Ilgiz Valiev / 0 [TTU]
440
63UF
#4 Singles Match
12
Bjorn Thomson / 0 [TTU]
66
24
#5 Singles Match
12
Franco Ribero / 0 [TTU]
66
41
#6 Singles Match
123
Artem Kapshuk / 0 [TTU]
720
61UF
Order of Finish:
2,5,1,4
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
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