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Terps Men's Tennis Upsets No. 43 Louisville, 4-3
March 2, 2008
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The Maryland men's tennis team played an inspired match against No. 43 Louisville on Sunday, and walked out of the Tennis Center at College Park with the Terps' first win over a ranked opponent this season. Maryland's 4-3 win improved its record to 6-2 on the season. Louisville dropped to 10-3. After losing the doubles point at home for the first time this season in their win over Penn on Friday, the Terps did not disappoint at doubles Sunday, winning two of the three matches. Playing at No. 2 doubles, Maryland's Amit Inbar and Nickolai Nielsen earned a win when they quickly upended Robert Rotaru and David Simon, 8-1. Michael Coleman and David Kwon gave a great effort against Louisville's Viktor Maksimcuk and Pablo Camacho at No. 3 doubles, but in the end lost, 8-5. With the split of the other doubles matches, the point came down to the anticipated match-up of Maryland's Andrew Orban and Boris Fetbroyt, the No. 30 doubles team in the nation, facing the No. 23 doubles tandem of Austen Childs and Simon Childs. The intensity level of the players on the court and the fans watching continued to rise throughout the day starting with the decisive doubles match. After holding serve to draw even at 4-4, Maryland went up a break and then held serve to take a 6-4 lead. The Cardinals then held serve, and earned a break of Fetbroyt's serve to bring the match back to 6-6. With the pressure on, the Terps came through, breaking the serve of Simon Childs, then closing out the match with a pair of huge aces from the ad-court by Orban to clinch the doubles point with their win, 8-6.
With the doubles point won, Maryland came out in singles with confidence and energy. At No. 4 singles, Fetbroyt started strong, taking a 4-1 lead in the first set against Louisville's Simon Childs. But Childs battled back to win the first set, and carried the momentum through the second set to win the match, 7-5, 6-1, evening the overall match score at 1-1. Playing at No. 2 singles, Orban got off to a slow start, falling behind 4-1 to Maksimcuk before coming back to make the first set close, before losing it eventually, 7-5. Orban bounced back quickly though and went on to win the match, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2. Kwon, at No. 3 singles, went back-and-forth in the first set with David Simon, but came out on top in the first set tie-breaker. After losing the second set, Kwon never trailed in the third set, as he closed the match with an ace to win, 7-6, 2-6, 6-4. Playing at No. 1 singles, Inbar played one of the closest matches of the day against the No. 40 singles player in the nation, Austen Childs. In a set that had four ties and five lead changes, Inbar took a lead late in the first set, but lost a set for the first time all season, 7-5. The second set was just as close as there were six ties before the tie-breaker, with Inbar never trailing in the set until after the tie-break began. With Kwon's match ending before the completion of Inbar's second set tie-breaker, the players on the court and everyone watching knew that Inbar could clinch the upset with a victory. The high level of play continued through the tie-break, with a heated back and forth battle between Inbar and Childs. With the match in his hands, Inbar rose to the occasion, winning the tie-break 8-6. In the pivotal third set, Inbar jumped out to an early lead, held serve on back-to-back aces to push the score to 5-3, and then hit a huge winner to clinch the match for the Terps, winning 5-7, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3. With the match won, Maryland's Nielsen looked to put an exclamation point on the win, but suffered a tough defeat, losing to Rotaru in the 10-point tie-breaker third set, 7-5, 6-7 (10-8), 1-0 (5-10). Playing at No. 6 singles, Maryland sophomore Alex Aksanov played a great match, but couldn't get past Alejandro Calligari, as he lost, 3-6, 6-7 (3-8). With their win the Terps improve to 6-0 at home on the season, and Inbar improves his singles record to 8-0. The nationally ranked doubles team of Orban and Fetbroyt also stayed undefeated with its win, pushing the duo's record to 6-0 for the season. Maryland will be back in action next weekend as the Terps play host to George Washington at 3 p.m. Friday. Maryland will also face a pair of opponents on Saturday as they play Delaware at noon and UMBC at 5 p.m. All matches will be played at the Tennis Center at College Park. |
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