Men's tennis escapes near-freeze with weekend split

By Casey Michel     2/4/10 6:00pm

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association suggests that, should temperatures fall below 50 degrees during a match, play be moved indoors. Last Saturday, Rice met Oklahoma State University in College Station, Texas, while the temperatures dipped into the mid-30s. But moving indoors required bagging up all the gear, restarting the bus and beginning the warm-up routine all over again. So coaches from Rice and Oklahoma State huddled, conferred and decided that they would gut out the cold snap.

Turned out to be the right move for the Owls - and no small irony, considering their match against the Cowboys was the first round of the National Indoors Qualifying Tournament.

Despite the cold deadening No. 19 Bruno Rosa's massive topspin, his main weapon, the 34th-ranked Owls (3-1) came out on top of the then-24th-ranked Cowboys (1-2) by a score of 4-1. Oklahoma State, now ranked 25th, pushed Rice to match point, but the Owls bounced back with stellar play and late momentum.

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However, that resolve seemed to dissipate the next day against then-46th-ranked Fresno State University. The Bulldogs (5-0) took the momentum gained from Saturday's win over No. 12 Texas A&M University and poured it on the Owls, earning a 4-0 win to advance to the third round of the tournament.

It was a tale of two entirely disparate matches - the former saw Rice down a higher-ranked opponent with inspired doubles play and bottom-of-the-ladder success, while the latter saw the Owls wilt before a lower-ranked Bulldogs squad.

Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) noted, however, that the rankings should not serve as the be-all, end-all in determining outcomes.

"It's disappointing in that we lost to a lower-ranked team, but that day we lost to a better team, in reality," Ustundag said of the loss to Fresno State. "I don't think they're necessarily a better team than we are on a regular basis, but on that day they certainly were."

Still, rankings do count for something - just ask Rosa, who was tasked with facing his second top-ranked opponent in four matches on Saturday. The Cowboys' Oleksandr Nedovyesov currently holds the top spot in the singles rankings, and it showed against the Owls. Rosa's signature shot that send the ball up to opponents' shoulder after its bounce was muted by the near-freezing temperatures, and Nedovyesov downed the 40th-ranked Rosa 6-2, 6-2.

Fortunately for Rice, the rest of the team picked up the slack. With the doubles point already in pocket, junior Michael Nusslein, sophomore Isamu Tachibana and freshman Jonathan Chang grabbed wins in the singles ladder to cement Rice's victory.

But the next day was a different story. Doubles went awry for the Owls, with both of Rice's top two teams falling to Fresno State. Tachibana, Chang and sophomore Oscar Podlewski then struggled in singles, dropping their matches in straight sets to give the Bulldogs the sweep.

Rice will now return home, hoping to wait out another cold front and whatever rain it may bring to face No. 29 Louisiana State University today at 1:30 p.m. and No. 20 University of Miami Sunday at 10 a.m. Both matches will take place at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.

The Tigers, who bounced Rice from the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season, will be struggling to recover after last weekend, which saw them drop a pair of matches against top-20 foes. Still, Ustundag sees the Tigers as more of a threat than they were the last time the two teams met.

"They're certainly coming back strong this year, with a stronger team," Ustundag said. "They're certainly looking to bounce back - we have to not give them that chance.

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