Men's tennis dominates Pinewood Invitational before going to two places

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by Shay Gilmore

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The team dominated, taking both of the championship positions in Flight I singles and the second-place spots in Flight II singles and doubles.

Assistant men's coach Greg Davis felt that the team was far ahead of where it was last year.

"We pretty much dominated the tournament," he said. "We had better results than other team there."

In the first round of the first flight matches, the men held their own, refusing to drop a single match.

Senior Shaheen Ladhani defeated Anthony Weber from Lamar University in three sets.

In the first match of his career, freshman Robert Collins blasted Miguel Perez of Northeastern Louisiana State University 6-0, 6-3.

Senior Rico Jacober and junior Efe Ustundag both won in straight sets.

The second round of first flight play, Ladhani successfully put away his opponent 6-3, 7-5. Collins, down a set and losing 3-0 in the second, came back to win his second-round match 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.

Jacober pulled out a hard-fought match, winning two nail-biting tie-breakers, edging Alexander Gamez of Northeastern Louisiana 7-6, 7-6.

In the quarterfinals, a tired Collins came back to win 6-3 after splitting the first two sets with Jesper Lindberg of Southeast Louisiana State University. Jacober advanced by defeating nationally-ranked Victor Sanchez of the University of Texas-San Antonio in straight sets.

With easy straight-set wins over their semifinal opponents, Collins and Jacober advanced to make the first-flight final an all-Rice affair.

Jacober took top honors in the final, defeating Collins 7-5, 6-4.

The Owls were equally impressive in the Flight 2 singles division.

As in Flight 1, all Rice entrants in the second flight advanced to the second round of match play.

In the second round, sophomore Darin Mast defeated Horatio Gutierrez of the University of Texas -Port Arthur 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Senior Burt Hong, junior Ben Pritchett and sophomore Naisohn Arfai all advanced to the quarterfinals with straight-set wins.

Mast and Hong met up in the quarterfinals where Hong prevailed 7-6, 6-3.

Arfai also stumped his opponent from Southwest Texas State University 6-1, 6-3.

In the semifinals, Arfai battled to a straight-set win over Herbert Steurer of NE Louisiana.

Arfai wound up with second place after his loss to Baylor's James Matthews in the finals.

The doubles team of Pritchett and Arfai were the only pair to lose in the first round.

In the second round, the team of Jacober and Collins broke their opponents from Baylor after seven games and went on to win 8-4.

Ladhani and Ustundag skated through their second round match against a team from SWT to win 8-2.

In the third round of doubles play, the team of Ladhani and Ustendag fell to the eventual tournament champions, Previn Wass and Lasith Dissanayake of Baylor, after losing the third set tie-breaker 7-2.

Jacober and Collins continued their run to the finals, defeating the team of Prudent and Struer from NE Louisiana 8-5 in their third match of the day.

Regarding the pair's fatigure, Collins said, "Although we were shagged, I guess we came through."

Breezing through their semifinal match 8-2, Jacober and Collins met Wass and Dissanayake in the finals where they fell 8-2.

Jacober said, "Those guys played out of their minds, making unbelievable shots left and right; they deserved the match."

The men will split up this weekend as they travel to College Station for the Aggie Five-way Tournament and to Lafayette for the University of Southwest Louisiana Rolex Invitational.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the October 6, 1995 issue.

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