Men's Tennis loses in Miami
The Rice University Owls were looking to make an early peak over .500 as they battled with the University of Miami last Sunday in Coral Gables, Fla. However, Rice was hit by a Miami hurricane, falling short against the Canes 1-6.
Miami knocked out not only the Owls, but also senior Peter Frank. Frank was hit in the head by a volley at the net during doubles play and did not return to the match.
Head Coach Efe Ustundag said Frank suffered a concussion, but Ustundag is hopeful for a swift recovery.
"Peter's injury is day to day," Ustundag said. "He had some concussion-like symptoms, and we hope to see him out there on the court soon. If the doctors don't feel like he is ready yet, we will take it one day at a time to see if he makes the lineup [against Louisiana State University]."
The Owls have a season record of 2-3 pending Thursday's result at home against Texas A&M University. The tough slate continues this weekend for Rice with a trip to Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday to take on LSU. In last year's contest the Tigers rolled in and took care of the Owls comfortably, 5-2, at Jake Hess Stadium.
Ustundag said he felt the Owls could have performed much better against Miami, but he said the team is ready to put this loss behind it and move forward. He said it cannot let its last loss dictate its future play, and that is what he likes about the college tennis regular season.
It is not a win or go home mentality like individual tournaments.
"The good thing about college tennis is that it is not a tournament during the regular season," Ustundag said. "The result the day before does not affect your next match. You are not trying to advance or else you have to go home."
Junior Philipp Seifert said keeping up the intensity in practice is key. He said the doubles play needs to significantly improve if the team wants to win some of these matches against ranked teams, especially when the team is on the road. He said momentum in a hostile environment is crucial for the Owls to have success.
"I feel like we need to keep our heads up and practice hard," Seifert said. "We need to keep the practices intense and work on our doubles a little bit because it is not huge things, but the small aspects of doubles, that can cost us that early point."
Ustundag said he sees a lot of similarities between the match at Miami and the match at LSU. Even though the Owls have been on the short end the past couple of years against the Tigers, Ustundag said he is very encouraged that they have the right matchups to get their first major win of the season.
"Just like we have had our success against Miami, we have lost a lot of close matches against LSU," Ustundag said. "It is a tough team to play on the road, but I really do like the matchups. We match up fairly well across the board. If we play with our best six, it is a winnable match."
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