Alabama Tennis Falls in Blue Gray First Round
3/16/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
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| Sammy Struyf |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. ?? After rain delayed the morning session at the Blue Gray Tennis Classic Thursday morning for nearly three hours, Alabama opened up the tournament with a 4-0 first round loss to Tulsa.
Will Gray clinched the win for Tulsa at No. 5 singles with a three-set win over Sammy Struyf.
“We got off to a bad start today and were forced to try and dig ourselves out of an early 2-0 hole,” Alabama head coach Billy Pate said. “I thought we did a nice job of fighting to get back in the match and I’m proud of our effort, but we can’t go down that quick.”
Because of the rain delay, singles were played first instead of the usual doubles. Tulsa won four of the six singles matches and play was stopped before the conclusion of singles.
Tulsa jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over the Crimson Tide with straight set wins from Arnam Brugues and Federico Soriano. Brugues collected his 10th consecutive win at No. 1 for the Golden Hurricane by defeating the Tide’s top player, Joseph Jung. Brugues, a freshman, hasn’t lost a set in his college career.
Despite falling behind early, Alabama pulled even in all four remaining matches but needed to win at least to force doubles. Mathieu Thibaudeau claimed the first set for the Tide at No. 3 and both Sammy Struyf and Billy Mertz won their second sets to force a third. However, following Tulsa’s third win, which came at No. 6, Struyf couldn’t complete the comeback against Gray and the match was stopped.
At the time the match was stopped, Billy Mertz led early in his third set for the Tide.
Alabama will continue play Friday morning at the Blue Gray Tennis Classic. The Tide will play either Louisville or Oregon at 9:30 a.m.
Tulsa 4, Alabama 0
Singles
Arnam Brugues (TU) d. Joseph Jung (UA), 6-2, 6-0
Federico Soriano (TU) d. Javier Bes (UA), 6-0, 6-1
Mathieu Thibaudeau (UA) vs. Ricardo Soriano (TU), 7-6, 2-6, 2-4 (DNF)
Billy Mertz (UA) vs. Alek Charpantides (TU), 5-7, 7-6 (DNF)
Will Gray (TU) d. Sammy Struyf (UA), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3
Diego Camacho (TU) d. Dan Buikema (UA), 6-3, 6-4
Doubles not played
