'Heels and 'Horns too much for Owls

By Casey Michel     3/11/10 6:00pm

Senior Bruno Rosa sat with a dark blue towel draped over his head, over his face, for nearly a minute. It was an overcast Wednesday afternoon, and he'd just fallen in one of the worst matches of the year, 6-1, 6-0, to the University of North Carolina's Clay Donato. Rosa's pose, disheartened and slumped, told you all you needed to know about the state of the men's tennis team. Wednesday's 4-3 loss to the 30th-ranked Tar Heels (9-2) was just the latest mark in a litany of setbacks for the 51st-ranked Owls (6-6).

In looking at the stumbles over the last two weeks, it's tough to tell which has hurt the most. Perhaps it was the 4-3 heartbreaker, suffered at home, against the fifth-ranked University of Texas - a match that saw the Owls storm back from a 3-0 hole, Rosa screaming as he tied it 3-3, only to wilt at the No. 5 hole moments later. Perhaps it's the fact that Rice's 6-1 road win against Loyola Marymount University over spring break was immediately negated by a suffocating 6-1 defeat to then-No. 27 Pepperdine University, a team that had won only two of its previous seven contests. Perhaps it was the fact that these losses dropped the Owls, who had peaked at No. 23 only three weeks ago, all the way to No. 50 in the nation.

Or perhaps it was the fact that Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, which gave Rice wins when it needed them most earlier this season, has since seen them lose two in a row, first to the Longhorns (13-2) and now the Tar Heels. The Owls are stuck in the midst of their toughest stretch of the season, and their home-court advantage has seemingly disappeared with the coming of spring.

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When asked how he felt after the past two weeks, Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) was blunt.

"Pretty crappy, to be honest with you," Ustundag said. "This is a pretty tough stretch, with a bunch of really good teams, but if we're any good we've got to win some of these matches. It's amazing that we just don't keep showing up, all six of us across the board. It's always something."

Against the Longhorns, it appeared that the "something" was simply a matter of talent. Texas brought four ranked players to the contest, in addition to a pair of ranked doubles tandems, to take on the Owls. Rosa held his own against then-13th ranked Dimitar Kutrovsky, taking a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 contest in dramatic fashion, but his was the only singles victory over a ranked opponent. Sophomores Sam Garforth-Bles and Christian Saravia both collected wins, but sophomore Isamu Tachibana, facing then-54th-ranked Josh Zavala, could not hang on to a 6-3, 3-0 lead, falling in straight sets to give Rice its first home loss of the year.

Taking the Longhorns, an obvious contender for the national title, to such a tight score may have been commendable to certain programs, but Ustundag was quick to snuff out any sense of satisfaction.

"A loss is a loss," he said. "There's no glory in a close loss, unfortunately. That would be like asking [baseball Head Coach] Wayne Graham if he was happy with a 2-1 loss to Texas. We put this schedule together to beat these teams . not to play them close."

To be fair, the Owls were shorthanded against the Waves, with sophomore Michael Nusslein, typically at the No. 3 position in singles, out with an illness.

But the Owls would have no such excuse against UNC, which came to the tennis stadium riding a three-match winning streak. At that point, it seemed that Rice singles players were little more than dominoes - topple one, and the rest would fall on the way to a Tar Heels victory.

The blame for the loss may not be attributed directly to that doubles point, but to the coaching staff, it was a point that should have been Rice's for the taking.

"I thought we were actually better than [UNC] in doubles," Ustundag said. "We just couldn't handle the pressure."

The Owls will welcome No. 19 Florida State University today at 12 p.m. and the 10th-ranked University of California-Berkeley Sunday at 11 a.m.

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