Men's tennis team comes up just short
The Rice men's tennis team completed their North Texas road trip and returned home to Houston last weekend.
While the team's results at Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University and Baylor University might seem a little mixed, the scores do not show the whole story of the men's play.
On March 29, the Owls took on the SMU Mustangs, and the Rice men were predicting an easy win.
After capturing the doubles point two matches to three, the Owls were looking to follow by winnning the matches of the singles play.
However, the Mustangs proved to be better than Rice had anticipated. Although sophomore Efe Ustundag was able to defeat his opponent Tim Radogna in straight sets, the rest of the Owls met one disappointment after another in singles action.
Defeating four out of five of the Rice men in straight sets, SMU won by a final score of 5-2.
March 30, the Owls took on and almost beat Texas Christian, a formidable opponent. TCU is currently ranked in the top five of the nation's collegiate tennis teams.
The Owls (currently striving for a top-50 ranking) were not expected to fair well. However, Rice struck fast and hard in the beginning with a convincing couple of doubles wins.
The sophomore team of Ustundag and Darin Mast came up with a huge win over TCU's strongest doubles team, currently ranked number seven in the country. For this reason, both Ustundag and Mast were pleased with their performance, as they walked away with a 9-5 win.
Another sophomore team, Shane Stone and Naisohn Arfai also played well against TCU. Stone played only this match as he continued on his road to recovery from injuries. "It was just fun to be back in the swing of it; I was just having a good time, and the fact that we won against such a strong team just made the whole thing that much sweeter," Stone said.
After the doubles wins, Rice was ready to face TCU in singles action, and the Owls almost came up with one of the biggest upsets in collegiate tennis history.
Both Ustundag and freshman Robert Collins were up a set in their matches before falling in their respective third sets.
"If these two matches had just swung the other way, we would have some real history on our hands," Assistant Coach Greg Davis said.
Arfai provided the lone singles win against the Horned Frogs, coming up with a third set victory.
Although TCU finished the day with a 5-2 victory, the Rice men managed to compete effectively against the highly ranked team.
"We played them [TCU] tougher than any other team has played them so far this semester. They just weren't expecting this level of play from us," Davis said.
Coming off of the near victory versus TCU, the Owls headed to Waco to play the Baylor University Bears.
Here again, the score fails to tell the story of the Owls' performance. Rice was able to pull out a solid win, 5-2, but the level of play was markedly different from that of the previous weekend in Arlington.
Rice dropped the doubles point and entered the singles play behind 1-0. However, solid and steady from the Owls' top three men's tennis players, Jon Elsberry, Rico Jacober and Ustundag (one, two and three, respectively) put them on top.
The win against Baylor was left to Collins and Ladhani as they gutted it out to third set victories.
"The Baylor win was a good, comprehensive win for us," Collins said. "Although I think we weren't playing our best, it was still satisfying to come out on top."
Davis added, "The Baylor win just goes to show that even when we're not at our best, we're still able to get the job done."
The Rice men will take on two more conference teams this weekend as they travel to College Station for a match against Texas A & M University. They then return home to Jake Hess Tennis Stadium for a Sunday match against the University of Texas at Austin (UT), the Owls' final conference match of the regular season.
-- Asst. Business Manager Anne Kimbol contributed to this article.
This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 12, 1996 issue.
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