Saturday, April 3
Houston, Texas
Noon
Rice University
2
vs
5
UTSA
Roadrunners Thwart Owls Rally
4/3/2021 6:34:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Host SMU and Prairie View next weekend
Houston: The Rice men's tennis team saw furious rally fall short as UTSA took a 5-2 decision in a match delayed multiple times by light rain at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Saturday.
Doubles: Unlike the earlier meeting in San Antonio where the Owls took the opening point, the Roadruners grabbed the early lead with wins at the second two lines, while the Owls held a 6-5 lead at the first line.
Singles: UTSA increased the lead to 3-0 with straight set wins at the first two lines and took four of six first sets in singles, but the clinching point proved to be far more elusive. Wes Barnett put the Owls on the board when he closed out his match at the fifth line with a 7-4 win in a second-set tiebreaker. Moments later, Mohamed Abdel-Aziz capped a rebound from a loss in his first set to win his third 6-0 and cut the margin to 3-2. Campbell Salmon captured a 12-10 tiebreak in his second set to send his to a third and freshman Trinity Grear was leading 3-2 and 40-15 in his third set when the most persistent band of rain on the day stalled play for over an hour. UTSA then stormed back after the delay to eventually close out the match.
Efe Ustundag: "We didn't play a good enough doubles point which surprised me. We'd looked good in practice leading up to the match and we had good energy and intensity before the match, but it didn't convert into good tennis. I felt like we got punched in the mouth by the doubles point and it took a long time to recover from that punch. We dropped four first sets at one through four that were not very competitive, but then it started rolling. Wes had a comfortable first and won a tiebreak to avoid a third set. Mo went up 5-2 in the second then breaks at 5-4 to win, then rolls through the third set. All year, we've had matches were if we could just get it a third set. We finally did that today. Campbell worked his butt off and saved a bunch of match points to win the tiebreaker 12-10. Trinity lost his second set, but had a good early recovery in the third. After being down 3-0 in a relatively quick fashion, it was feeling like finally we're going to be on this side of a comeback. I felt like we had the momentum. But this is an outdoor sport and weather delays are part of the game. We should have done a better job when we came back out. Within 20 minutes, it went from being down 1-0 in the third to 4-0 and 15-40 on one court and from being up 3-2 and 40-15 to down 5-4."
Up Next: The Owls will join with the Rice women to host a pair of duals next weekend. They will host SMU in the second annual Turpin Cup on Saturday at 11 a.m. and then host Prairie View at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Doubles: Unlike the earlier meeting in San Antonio where the Owls took the opening point, the Roadruners grabbed the early lead with wins at the second two lines, while the Owls held a 6-5 lead at the first line.
Singles: UTSA increased the lead to 3-0 with straight set wins at the first two lines and took four of six first sets in singles, but the clinching point proved to be far more elusive. Wes Barnett put the Owls on the board when he closed out his match at the fifth line with a 7-4 win in a second-set tiebreaker. Moments later, Mohamed Abdel-Aziz capped a rebound from a loss in his first set to win his third 6-0 and cut the margin to 3-2. Campbell Salmon captured a 12-10 tiebreak in his second set to send his to a third and freshman Trinity Grear was leading 3-2 and 40-15 in his third set when the most persistent band of rain on the day stalled play for over an hour. UTSA then stormed back after the delay to eventually close out the match.
Efe Ustundag: "We didn't play a good enough doubles point which surprised me. We'd looked good in practice leading up to the match and we had good energy and intensity before the match, but it didn't convert into good tennis. I felt like we got punched in the mouth by the doubles point and it took a long time to recover from that punch. We dropped four first sets at one through four that were not very competitive, but then it started rolling. Wes had a comfortable first and won a tiebreak to avoid a third set. Mo went up 5-2 in the second then breaks at 5-4 to win, then rolls through the third set. All year, we've had matches were if we could just get it a third set. We finally did that today. Campbell worked his butt off and saved a bunch of match points to win the tiebreaker 12-10. Trinity lost his second set, but had a good early recovery in the third. After being down 3-0 in a relatively quick fashion, it was feeling like finally we're going to be on this side of a comeback. I felt like we had the momentum. But this is an outdoor sport and weather delays are part of the game. We should have done a better job when we came back out. Within 20 minutes, it went from being down 1-0 in the third to 4-0 and 15-40 on one court and from being up 3-2 and 40-15 to down 5-4."
Up Next: The Owls will join with the Rice women to host a pair of duals next weekend. They will host SMU in the second annual Turpin Cup on Saturday at 11 a.m. and then host Prairie View at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2
#1 Singles Match
12
Juri Reckow / 0 [UTSA]
66
30
#2 Singles Match
12
Joao Ceolin / 0 [UTSA]
66
23
#3 Singles Match
123
Kai Breitbach / 0 [UTSA]
640
466
#4 Singles Match
123
Javier Gonzalez / 0 [UTSA]
666
373
#5 Singles Match
12
Slava Gulin / 0 [UTSA]
26
67
#6 Singles Match
123
Javier Rodriguez / 0 [UTSA]
366
644
Order of Finish:
1,2,5,3,6,4
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
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