Men's tennis turns in valiant effort but succumbs at ITAs

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by Shay Gilmore

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This tournament, held on Oct. 13-15 , was the precursor to an eight-day tennis extravaganza in which some of the best players in the country participated.

However, the Rice men did not make the cut and were solidly stopped in the tournament qualifying rounds.

"This was the first year that we ever entered this tournament, and I am relatively pleased with our performance," Head Coach Larry Turville said. "Of course, the competition was extremely tough, and I am glad our guys had the chance to get this kind of exposure."

Coming out with the most round advances of the Rice entrants, seniors Jon Elsberry and Shaheen Ladhani had the best results of the tournament.

Elsberry played particularly well, advancing all the way to the fourth round without dropping a set. However, after his first round bye and two convincing wins, Elsberry met his match in Alex Witt from Northwestern University.

Unfazed by the wind earlier, Elsberry struggled against it and fell to Witt 6-3, 6-3.

Ladhani similarly benefitted from a first-round bye. In the second round, Ladhani met up with Purdue University's Greg Wessenberg whom he sent packing with an easy straight-set victory 6-3, 6-1.

However, in his third-round match against Denny English of Ball State University, Ladhani was defeated by the same score 6-3, 6-1.

After a first-round bye, sophomore Naisohn Arfai experienced a great deal of trouble adapting to the wind as he battled Zvika Levchovitch of the University of Tulsa.

Losing the first set 6-3, Arfai had a chance to come back and split, but again the wind threw him off, and Arfai fell to Levchovitch in a second-set tie-breaker.

Efe Ustundag had an impressive first-round win against Ty Braswell of Florida State University.

He came through solidly in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 against Braswell. However, in his second-round match, Ustundag found himself at the mercy of Brad Holland of Southwest Texas State University. Holland leveled him with a 6-2, 6-3 win.

After a first-round bye, junior Ben Pritchett was almost able to pull a win out of his match against Jim Boye of Ball State University.

In fact, Pritchett won the first set convincingly 6-2, but after losing the next set 6-2, Pritchett found himself down a break in the third, and he was unable to get back into the match. Pritchett eventually capitulated 6-2 in the third.

Junior Rico Jacober continued to suffer from a stomach illness as he was stopped by Chris De Vore of the University of Illinois 6-4, 6-0.

Also after a first-round bye, sophomore Darin Mast battled a great second set before losing 6-2, 7-5 to Emmanuel Godzorh of the University of California at San Diego.

Freshman Robert Collins fell in his first-round match in straight sets to another Californian, Jack Nhigham of UCSD.

The Rice men will travel this weekend to Fort Worth where they will participate in the Rolex Regional Tournament. Those who do well there will advance to the national indoor tournament.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the October 27, 1995 issue.

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