Saturday, February 4
Houston, Texas
11 AM
Rice University
2
vs
4
LSU
Tigers Hold Off Owls
2/4/2023 5:55:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Two-match road trip to Tennessee up next
In Brief: Rice saw a rally from a loss in doubles come up short as LSU outlasted the Owls 4-2 at the George R. Brown Tennis Center on Saturday afternoon.
The Details: Playing in front of a large crowd drawn to the GRBTC to see the Rice men and women take on SEC foes, Efe Ustundag's squad shook off the loss of a tight doubles point to extend the Tigers to third sets on the final two courts of action.
Doubles: Kabeer Kapasi and Yasha Zemel improved to 5-0 this season with a 6-3 win at the third line to answer LSU's early win at the second line. LSU took the point with a 6-4 win at the first line, snapping a five-matching winning streak for the Owls in doubles.
Singles: Faced with the need for four points in singles, Rice stormed to quick first-set wins by Wes Barnett and Kapasi and Emir Sendogan followed shortly after. The Owls were poised to take the remaining first sets, only to see the Tigers win a pair of tiebreaks and the third, 7-5. Barnett and Kapasi held their momentum into the second set, each weathering an early surge by their opponent before closing out their matches and putting Rice up 2-1. LSU surged back in front with wins at the first two lines and forced Sendogan to a third set. Campbell Salmon surged late in his second set to force a third as well. But LSU's Julien Penzlin closed out the match and delivered the clinching point 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-3.
Efe Ustundag: "We played hard and we played well. It was literally a couple of points here or there. We were always trying to keep up in doubles and looking for that one opportunity, but we just didn't get it. What we didn't have in doubles, we had in singles. Wes was big key for us. He came out and played a great set right out of the blocks. Every opportunity he had, he put it away. He's playing really good offense and when he went down 3-1 in the second, he stuck to his guns, broke back and closed it out. I think it was a heavyweight battle at the top two spots and those guys just, we're a little bit better and stronger today, but three through six, it was an even match."
Up Next Rice (3-4) travels to Tennessee next weekend to take on 19th ranked Middle Tennessee on Friday and Vanderbilt on Sunday. They return to GRBTC in two weeks to host Tulane at 11 a.m.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
2,3,1
#1 Singles Match
12
Ronald Hohmann / 0 [LSU]
76
64
#2 Singles Match
12
Stefan Latinovic / 0 [LSU]
76
53
#3 Singles Match
1234
Chen Dong / 0 [LSU]
4650
646UF
#4 Singles Match
12
Welsh Hotard / 0 [LSU]
24
66
#5 Singles Match
12
George Stoupe / 0 [LSU]
23
66
#6 Singles Match
123
Julien Penzlin / 0 [LSU]
736
663
Order of Finish:
4,5,2,1,6
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
/ Men's Tennis
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