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February 8, 2008 > Sports > Men’s tennis faces early test in No. 24 Miami Sunday at home

Men’s tennis faces early test in No. 24 Miami Sunday at home

Coming off crucial road wins over No. 10 UNC and No. 20 NC State, Owls prepare to face Arizona today at 1:30 p.m.

By Casey Michel | Thresher Editorial Staff

Pride — one of the many intangibles that sports has to offer. For the men’s tennis team, pride was something they had been lacking, especially after their season-opening loss to unranked University of Southern Florida Jan. 27. But with last week’s astounding wins over North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina, two teams ranked in the top 20 nationally, it is safe to say that Rice has every reason to feel confident.

The Owls, who jumped from 41st to 23rd in the rankings Tuesday, now return home for their first action of the season at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. In today’s match, Rice will square off with the University of Arizona at 1:30 p.m. Though unranked, Arizona is a squad that could potentially slow the Owls’ momentum — the Wildcats have yet to lose a match this year, thrashing the likes of Gonzaga University and the University of San Francisco on their way to a 5-0 record.

Rice will then host No. 24 University of Miami (Fla.) on Sunday at 11 a.m. in a matchup of top-25 teams. The Hurricanes boast the No. 7 player in the nation, Daniel Vallverdu, and the 18th-ranked doubles pair of Vivek Subramanian and David Rosenfeld.

Rice should have plenty of momentum, especially after winning both of its road matches last week in the deciding third set. Friday in Raleigh, N.C., the Owls came out firing in doubles play against N.C. State. Sophomore Bruno Rosa and junior Tobias Scheil struck first, downing Rob Lowe and James McGee 8-4 at No. 3. After Rice lost at No. 1, the tandem of sophomore Chong Wang and senior Filip Zivojinovic pushed their contest with Derek Stephens and Christian Welte into a tiebreak. It did not take long for the Rice pair to grab the momentum, and they quickly won 7-2 to seal the doubles point.

The tight play in doubles was indicative of how singles would fare, as five of the six singles matches went into tiebreakers. Stephens quickly evened up the score with a 7-6 (6), 6-2 win over Zivojinovic, but sophomore Christoph Mueller, who was named Conference USA Player of the Week Tuesday, battled back from a first-set loss to win 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. However, the Wolfpack would not be denied — Jay Weinacker beat No. 45 Ralph Knupfer at No. 3 to knot the score at 2.

The seesaw battle continued at the top of the ladder as Rosa gutted out a 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4 win. But before the Owls could clinch, Wang dropped a three-set match, at which point all eyes turned to sophomore Dennis Polyakov.

Polyakov, in his first competition of the season, could not hang on in the first set against Eric Turner and dropped the tiebreaker 8-6. Bouncing back with a 6-3 win in the second set, Polyakov looked to put the match away with a 4-1 lead in the third. Turner quickly broke and brought the score to 4-3, and was serving at 40-0 before Polyakov won five straight points to go ahead 5-3. That resurgence disheartened Turner, and Polyakov easily won the final game to earn the win for the Owls.

Assistant coach Efe Ustundag (Baker ‘99) said the win was a result of the team’s frustration from the loss to South Florida.

“It was just a matter of guys responding from a really, really bad start,” he said. “There were a couple of question marks, and the team really did a fabulous job of responding to it. […] They took responsibility for it and came out really, really fired up.”

While this match was emotionally tiring, the Owls did not seem fatigued as they faced UNC two days later at Chapel Hill, N.C. Again, strong doubles play set the tone for the rest of the match. At the No. 1 position, Mueller and Knupfer met their toughest competition of the year: Taylor Fogleman and Chris Kearney, ranked No. 3 in the nation. After the Owls and Tar Heels split the other two doubles matches, the German duo battled Fogleman and Kearney into a tiebreaker, and, just as Zivojinovic and Wang had done two days prior, the Owls took it 7-2.

The Tar Heels rebounded with wins at Nos. 5 and 6 before Rosa and Mueller grabbed wins of their own. And to secure the victory, Knupfer finally earned his first singles win of the year, dropping Kearney 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.

Ustundag noted that after the team’s disheartening loss to USF, last week’s matches brought newfound confidence to the team.

“What we didn’t see the week before was when we were down a set we didn’t fight back — we rolled over,” he said. “This time the guys actually showed some pride, and that’s really what it came down to: playing with pride. Nobody quit.”

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