Marquette University
BIG EAST CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT
Men's Tennis Falls to USF
4/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
April 20, 2007
TAMPA, Fla. - In the opening round of the BIG EAST Championships, the no. 6 seeded Marquette men's tennis team fell, 4-0, to the no. 3 seed South Florida. The Golden Eagles will face Georgetown at noon tomorrow in the consolation round. The no. 7 seeded Hoyas fell to Louisville this afternoon.
Despite a strong doubles effort, Marquette was unable to walk away with the early point. Stephen Shao and Niko Boulieris took down Marc Jaeger and Ales Svigeli 8-1 at no. 3. With a Bulls victory at no.1, the attention focused to the no. 2 spot where Trent Hagan and Pete Van Lieshout came from behind to force a tiebreaker but came up short falling to Henning Hipp and Daniel Daudt, 9-8(6).
"We had a lot of opportunities in doubles," head coach Steve Rodecap said. "We played well at no. 3 and earned a win there. Pete and Trent played a pretty good match at no. 2 and held 8 times to get it to a tie breaker. We ended up losing a really tight tiebreaker."
Marquette was unable to regain their momentum in singles dropping all six first sets. At no. 1, Hagan recovered in the second set dominating Svigeli but the match did not finish due to USF earning four points.
"I felt we did okay at the beginning of singles," Rodecap said. "We dug ourselves a hole in the first sets. Trent came back and won the second set and Brett got some momentum but we were unable to closeout any matches. Give credit to South Florida. They competed well and were just better than us today."
With today's loss the Golden Eagles drop to 12-8 overall.
-COMPLETE RESULTS-
No. 3 USF 4, No. 6 Marquette 0
Doubles:
1.)Hamed/Estrada (USF) def. Binkley/Rutherford (MU) 8-3
2) Hipp/Daudt (USF) def. Hagan/Van Lieshout (MU) 9-8(6)
3) Shao/Boulieris (MU) def. Jaeger/Svigelj (USF) 8-1
Singles:
1) Ales Svigeli (USF) led Trent Hagan (MU) 6-3, 0-6, 2-1 DNF
2) Marc Jaeger (USF) def. Stephen Shao (MU) 6-2, 6-2
3) Mahmoud Hamed (USF) led Mark Rutherford (MU) 6-4, 3-1 DNF
4) Diego Toledo (USF) led Brett Binkley (MU) 6-1, 2-3 DNF
5) Thomas Estrada (USF) def. Greg Sirotek (MU) 6-3, 6-2
6) Henning Hipp (USF) def. Pete Van Lieshout (MU) 6-4, 6-3
Players Mentioned
