Men fall to Texas A&M early
The Rice men's tennis team returned home on Sunday from a disappointing weekend in Fort Worth at the Southwest Conference Men's Tennis Championships.
"We all could've played a little better; we could've given a little more," senior Jon Elsberry said.
In the first round of the men's competition, Rice once again met up with the Texas A&M University Aggies.
The Owls came into this first match having just narrowly lost to the Aggies last weekend, 3-4.
"Texas A&M played well. [Senior] Shaheen Ladhani has been injured, and [sophomore] Naisohn Arfai was not able to get into his match," Head Coach Larry Turville said.
"Also, [junior] Rico Jacober has been sick and wasn't able to practice over the past two weeks. But the bottom line is [the Aggies] played well and earned the win," Turville said.
The Rice men started off the match against A&M in traditional Rice style, capturing the doubles point from the get-go.
This was especially important for the Owls since in the previous week's match-up, the Owls dropped the doubles point to A&M, and it proved to be the margin of defeat.
The team of Elsberry and Ladhani toppled their Aggie adversaries 8-5 just as Arfai and sophomore Shane Stone were finishing their opponents off in similar style.
However, the Rice wins in the doubles play did not set the tone for the rest of the match-up.
In singles action, A&M thoroughly stumped the Rice men, taking each singles match and leaving the Owls without even a set to their names.
Although Elsberry was able to win a set from his opponent, A&M's Blake Arrant, the match was discontinued once A&M had won four of the singles matches.
Ladhani remained close throughout the first set of his match against Eric Horan, eventually losing 5-7.
Horan came back strong in the second set and stuffed Ladhani 2-6.
Freshman Robert Collins played a rather difficult match against A&M's Robbie Krause, who is having a record season this year.
After falling to Krause in the first set 4-6, Collins was driven over in the second as Krause turned on the heat to a score of 1-6.
"If we had just been able to turn things around in these same matches that we lost the weekend before, we would have really been set up for some prime ranking," Collins said.
This loss to the Aggies put an end to their season, as they left the tournament with only a first round defeat, dreams of what might have been, and a bitter taste in their mouths until next year.
This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 26, 1996 issue.
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