Sunday, January 16
Houston, Texas
1 PM
Rice University
3
vs
4
Denver
Denver Outlasts Owls in Marathon Match
1/16/2022 5:58:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Owls host Lamar and Prairie View next Saturday
In Brief: There was more than one marathon in Houston on Sunday as Rice and Denver battled for more than four hours before the Pioneers took a grueling 4-3 decision at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
The Details: The start to the college tennis season for both schools was delayed until 1 p.m. to avoid the early-morning cold as well as the Houston Marathon, which passed by the Rice campus. But once the teams hit the court, they staged a back-and-forth battle that took 4:05 to complete before Denver could win the decisive final match and post its first win in three tries against Rice. The Owls were sporting a lineup that included two players (Haoyuan Huang and Eduardo Morais) who joined the team two weeks ago for the start of the second semester.
Doubles: Trinity Grear and AJ Valenty gave the Owls the early edge with a 6-2 win at the third. After Denver won a close decision at the second line, Sumit Sarkar and Haoyuan Huang took the Pioneers' 32nd ranked duo of James Davis and Matt Summers to the limit before falling 7-3 in a tiebreaker to give the visitors the first point of the day.
Singles: The teams split the first six sets of singles and that held true to the end of the match despite a rally by Morais that left the outcome in doubt until late in the day. Grear, Emir Sendogan, and Adam Oscislawski each held their first set leads to win in order and give the Owls a 3-1 lead. Denver countered with wins at the first and third lines to knot the score. Morais battled back from a 5-2 deficit in his second set to force a third before falling 6-2.
Efe Ustundag: "Really proud of the effort today, both by the guys on the court and the guys who were supporting them. We had four guys out there making the dual debuts for us, two of them who only got here last week. If you look at it, three of Denver's points came from their two grad students and the fourth from a senior. Our guys all showed great composure out there and their support for each other was tremendous. We fought like dogs, but the margins were very small and it was just a couple points here and there. Denver is a heckuva team and the kind of experience they have shows up in matches like this. I like how we started this season off. Emir picked up where he left off in the fall, Trinity is a really good dual match player. Adam played a really solid match. Eduardo gave it everything he had to come back from down 5-2. When you get that kind of desire from a freshman, that's when you know we are going to be alright."
Up Next The Owls will host the first of two doubleheaders scheduled for 2022 when they host Lamar (10 a.m.) and Prairie View (3 p.m.) next Saturday (January 22) at GRBTC.
The Details: The start to the college tennis season for both schools was delayed until 1 p.m. to avoid the early-morning cold as well as the Houston Marathon, which passed by the Rice campus. But once the teams hit the court, they staged a back-and-forth battle that took 4:05 to complete before Denver could win the decisive final match and post its first win in three tries against Rice. The Owls were sporting a lineup that included two players (Haoyuan Huang and Eduardo Morais) who joined the team two weeks ago for the start of the second semester.
Doubles: Trinity Grear and AJ Valenty gave the Owls the early edge with a 6-2 win at the third. After Denver won a close decision at the second line, Sumit Sarkar and Haoyuan Huang took the Pioneers' 32nd ranked duo of James Davis and Matt Summers to the limit before falling 7-3 in a tiebreaker to give the visitors the first point of the day.
Singles: The teams split the first six sets of singles and that held true to the end of the match despite a rally by Morais that left the outcome in doubt until late in the day. Grear, Emir Sendogan, and Adam Oscislawski each held their first set leads to win in order and give the Owls a 3-1 lead. Denver countered with wins at the first and third lines to knot the score. Morais battled back from a 5-2 deficit in his second set to force a third before falling 6-2.
Efe Ustundag: "Really proud of the effort today, both by the guys on the court and the guys who were supporting them. We had four guys out there making the dual debuts for us, two of them who only got here last week. If you look at it, three of Denver's points came from their two grad students and the fourth from a senior. Our guys all showed great composure out there and their support for each other was tremendous. We fought like dogs, but the margins were very small and it was just a couple points here and there. Denver is a heckuva team and the kind of experience they have shows up in matches like this. I like how we started this season off. Emir picked up where he left off in the fall, Trinity is a really good dual match player. Adam played a really solid match. Eduardo gave it everything he had to come back from down 5-2. When you get that kind of desire from a freshman, that's when you know we are going to be alright."
Up Next The Owls will host the first of two doubleheaders scheduled for 2022 when they host Lamar (10 a.m.) and Prairie View (3 p.m.) next Saturday (January 22) at GRBTC.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2,1
#1 Singles Match
12
James Davis / 0 [DEN]
76
53
#2 Singles Match
12
Nico Herrero Cuesta / 0 [DEN]
03
66
#3 Singles Match
12
Matt Summers / 0 [DEN]
67
36
#4 Singles Match
12
Mattia Ros / 0 [DEN]
35
67
#5 Singles Match
12
Peter Sallay / 0 [DEN]
53
76
#6 Singles Match
123
Daniel Krulig / 0 [DEN]
766
672
Order of Finish:
5,2,4,1,3,6
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
WBB: Rice vs. Marshall Postgame Presser
Wednesday, March 09
VB: Rice-Texas Postgame Presser
Saturday, December 04
VB: Rice-San Diego Postgame Presser
Thursday, December 02