Rice University
Prairie View A&M
Men's Tennis Posts Pair of 7-0 Sweeps Over Prairie View A&M
1/13/2024 6:29:00 PM | Men's Tennis
In Brief: Rice men's tennis opened the 2024 dual match season with a pair of 7-0 sweeps of Lamar on Saturday at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
The Details: The Owls went 6-0 in doubles action and secured straight-set victories in 11 of 12 singles matches across two 7-0 victories over Lamar. In the first match.
Doubles: In the day's first match, senior Trinity Grear and sophomore Kabeer Kapasi started the Owls off with a 6-1 victory at the second position. Juniors Arthus de le Bassetiere and Eduardo Morais followed shortly thereafter with a 6-0 victory at court three. Senior Yasha Zemel and sophomore Santiago Navarro completed the doubles sweep in the opening match with a 6-2 win at the top spot.
In the second match of the day, Kapasi and Morais teamed for a 6-2 victory at the first position, followed by Grear and Sendogan winning, 6-1, at the third position. At court two, de la Bassetiere and freshman Petro Kuzmenok won, 6-2, to complete a 6-0 day in doubles action for the Owls.
Singles: In the opening match, all six Owls won in straight sets as Navarro, Kapasi and Grear won in rapid succession to clinch the match for Rice. Sendogan, Zemel and de la Bassetiere subsequently closed our their matches for the 7-0 victory.
In Rice's second match, Kapasi and Kuzmenok delivered the first victories before Morais clinched the match at the fifth position. Zemel and Sendogan also won in straight sets at the first and third courts, respectively, before de la Bassetiere won in a third-set super-tiebreak to preserve Rice's perfect record on the day.
Head Coach Efe Ustundag: "I think this is exactly how we wanted today to go. It's always good to see our second set scores as strong as the first set score, or at times even strong. Sometimes when you are winning comfortably in first sets, it's tough and it's easy sometimes to lose a little bit of focus and get a little lazy. Thankfully, it didn't happen. The guys just stayed the course Overall very good, obviously. We changed some things around the second doubles just to give everybody a chance to try some things. This is one week into the season training and to see this kind of focus and effort was good. It gives us one more week to really build on the training last week. I thought we had a good week of training last week in some tough conditions from the weather perspective. Then we came out and played in really great conditions today. I think it'll give us a chance to continue to work on the little things that we've been working on so I expect that progress to continue and for us to be a little bit better next weekend."
Up Next: Rice (2-0, 0-0 AAC) returns to the court next Sunday, Jan. 21, at 11 a.m. (CT) when they host Lamar at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
RESULTS
Match One
Rice 7, Prairie View A&M 0
Doubles
#1 - Yasha Zemel/Santiago Navarro (Rice) def. Diego Hatem/Eduardo Nunez del Prado Flores (PVAMU) 6-2
#2 - Trinity Grear/Kabeer Kapasi (Rice) def. Abdulraheem Isa/Jaydn Boone (PVAMU) 6-1
#3 - Arthus de la Bassetiere/Eduardo Morais (Rice) def. Omari Dudley/Tafari Dudley (PVAMU) 6-0
Singles
#1 - Zemel (Rice) def. Flores (PVAMU) 6-0, 6-2
#2 - Grear (Rice) def. Isa (PVAMU) 6-1, 6-0
#3 - de la Bassetiere (Rice) def. Hatem (PVAMU) 6-2, 6-1
#4 - Emir Sendogan (Rice) def. Xavier Peter-Gooding (PVAMU) 6-1, 6-2
#5 - Navarro (Rice) def. Boone (PVAMU) 6-0, 6-0
#6 - Kapasi (Rice) def. Dudley (PVAMU) 6-0, 6-1
Match Two
Rice 7, Prairie View A&M 0
Doubles
#1 - Kapasi/Morais (Rice) def. Hatem/Flores (PVAMU) 6-2
#2 - de la Bassetiere/Petro Kuzmenok (Rice) def. Isa/Peter-Gooding (PVAMU) 6-2
#3 - Grear/Sendogan (Rice) def. Dudley/Dudley (PVAMU) 6-1
Singles
#1 - Zemel (Rice) def. Isa (PVAMU) 6-3, 6-1
#2 - de la Bassetiere (Rice) def. Flores (PVAMU) 6-0, 4-6 1-0 (10-3)
#3 - Sendogan (Rice) def. Hatem (PVAMU) 6-2, 6-1
#4 - Kapasi (Rice) def. Peter-Gooding (PVAMU) 6-1, 6-1
#5 - Morais (Rice) def. T. Dudley (PVAMU) 6-0, 6-2
#6 - Kuzmenok (Rice) def. R. Boone (PVAMU) 6-0, 6-1
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
2,3,1
#1 Singles Match
#2 Singles Match
#3 Singles Match
#4 Singles Match
#5 Singles Match
#6 Singles Match
Order of Finish:
5,6,2,4,1,3
Players Mentioned
