Friday, April 22
Norfolk, Virginia
9 AM
Rice University
3
vs
4
#47 Charlotte
Photo by: Keith Lucas/Sideline Media
Owls Take Charlotte to the Limit
4/22/2022 3:29:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Season ends at 12-13
Norfolk: The Rice men's tennis team battled 47th ranked Charlotte for nearly four hours before the 49ers captured the last two matches to take a hard-fought 4-3 decision in the quarterfinals of the Conference USA Men's Tennis Championship on Friday. Rice ends the season at 12-13 while Charlotte improved to 17-6.
Doubles: Charlotte struck first with a win at the third line, but the Owls closed strongly on the remaining courts to take a 1-0 lead. Wes Barnett and Trinity Grear won at the second line, 6-4 to set the stage for Sumit Sarkar and AJ Valenty to grab the point with a 7-5 win.
Singles: In need of four singles wins, the 49ers grabbed four first sets, but Rice answered that challenge by sending three of those to third sets and just missing the fourth. Charlotte moved in front with wins at the second and third lines, but Campbell Salmon and Haoyuan Huang answered with wins to put Rice back up 3-2, shifting the outcome to the fifth and sixth lines. The 49ers grabbed their second win over the Owls this season by closing out both matches to advance to Saturday's semifinals.
Efe Ustundag: "Plain and simple, I could not be more proud of this team. Every player in every match left everything he had on the court. We definitely didn't deserve to lose and we did everything we could to win but came up a little short."
Notable:
Doubles: Charlotte struck first with a win at the third line, but the Owls closed strongly on the remaining courts to take a 1-0 lead. Wes Barnett and Trinity Grear won at the second line, 6-4 to set the stage for Sumit Sarkar and AJ Valenty to grab the point with a 7-5 win.
Singles: In need of four singles wins, the 49ers grabbed four first sets, but Rice answered that challenge by sending three of those to third sets and just missing the fourth. Charlotte moved in front with wins at the second and third lines, but Campbell Salmon and Haoyuan Huang answered with wins to put Rice back up 3-2, shifting the outcome to the fifth and sixth lines. The 49ers grabbed their second win over the Owls this season by closing out both matches to advance to Saturday's semifinals.
Efe Ustundag: "Plain and simple, I could not be more proud of this team. Every player in every match left everything he had on the court. We definitely didn't deserve to lose and we did everything we could to win but came up a little short."
Notable:
- Rice finished the season 9-4 when clinching the doubles point, 3-9 when dropping the first point of the match.
- Huang finished his freshman season 17-5 the best mark by an Owl since Sarkar was 17-5 in his sophomore season.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
3,2,1
#1 Singles Match
12
77
Thomas Brown / 0 [CLT]
56
#2 Singles Match
123
465
Stefanos Savva / 0 [CLT]
627
#3 Singles Match
12
26
Mikhail Sokolovskiy / 0 [CLT]
67
#4 Singles Match
123
066
Coy Simon / 0 [CLT]
642
#5 Singles Match
123
565
Vasco Prata / 0 [CLT]
747
#6 Singles Match
123
621
Abhimanyu Vannemredd / 0 [CLT]
366
Order of Finish:
3,2,4,1,5,6
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
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