Monday, February 25, 2008

Men’s tennis: SMU 5, Minnesota 2

By Pegasus News wire

The No. 44 SMU men's tennis team executed another big win Sunday, dismantling Minnesota, 5-2, at the Dallas Country Club. With the win, the Mustangs improve to 9-2, while the Gophers slip to 1-7.

The Mustangs started out strong, picking up the doubles point after winning two of the three matches. At No. 1, Robin Fahgen and Alex Skrypko paired to defeat Sebastian Gallego and Raoul Schwark in a closely-contested 8-6 battle. David Kuczer and Adolfo Solares took on Dino Bilankov and Derek Peterson, defeating them in a 9-8 (4) shootout at No. 2, clinching the doubles point for SMU. At No. 3, Oivind Alver and Chris Hooshyar won their match over Chi-Lang Pham and Pierre Dumas, 8-3.

In singles, No. 50 Fahgen battled hard against No. 46 Schwark, winning his first set with little trouble, 6-3. But Schwark battled back, beating Fahgen in two close sets, 7-6, 6-4. Kuczer fell behind early, dropping his first set against Bilankov, 6-2. Kuczer regrouped and dominated the second set, 6-2, before eking out a win in his third set, 6-4, to take the match. In the third slot, Skrypko dropped his match to Gallego in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2.

But Alver started the rally for the Mustangs in the fourth position, notching an impressive come-from-behind win. Alver lost his first set to Dumas, 6-1, but rallied back to take the match by winning two straight, 6-2, 6-3. At No. 5, Hooshyar took Pham down in tight, straight sets, 6-4, 7-5. Taylor St. Eve wrapped up the match for the Mustangs, taking a 6-2, 6-4 straight-set victory over Altepeter at No. 6.

"This was an exciting, hard-fought match," said head coach Carl Neufeld. "Minnesota played very well. David [Kuczer] and Oivind [Alver] both came from behind to win in their singles matches against some very inspired play by the Gophers. Those two matches really won the match for us and I have to give those guys a lot of credit."

The Mustangs face a tough road ahead as they head to the east coast to face No. 33 Virginia Tech on Friday, Feb. 29 and No. 21 Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) on Saturday, March 1 in Richmond, Va. Both matches will be held at 11am CT. For the complete schedule and results, log on to SMUMustangs.com.

Source: SMU

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