the Rice Thresher

Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Sports

Media Credit: David Rosales Senior Bruno Rosa, here serving past sophomore Isamu Tachibana, will look to lead Rice against No. 28 LSU today at 1 p.m. at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, as well as against Miami on Sunday at 11 a.m.

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association suggests that, should temperatures fall below 50 degrees during a match, play be moved indoors. Last Saturday, Rice met Oklahoma State University in College Station, Texas, while the temperatures dipped into the mid-30s.

But moving indoors required bagging up all the gear, restarting the bus and beginning the warm-up routine all over again. So coaches from Rice and Oklahoma State huddled, conferred and decided that they would gut out the cold snap.

Turned out to be the right move for the Owls - and no small irony, considering their match against the Cowboys was the first round of the National Indoors Qualifying Tournament.

Despite the cold deadening No. 19 Bruno Rosa's massive topspin, his main weapon, the 34th-ranked Owls (3-1) came out on top of the then-24th-ranked Cowboys (1-2) by a score of 4-1. Oklahoma State, now ranked 25th, pushed Rice to match point, but the Owls bounced back with stellar play and late momentum.

However, that resolve seemed to dissipate the next day against then-46th-ranked Fresno State University. The Bulldogs (5-0) took the momentum gained from Saturday's win over No. 12 Texas A&M University and poured it on the Owls, earning a 4-0 win to advance to the third round of the tournament.

It was a tale of two entirely disparate matches - the former saw Rice down a higher-ranked opponent with inspired doubles play and bottom-of-the-ladder success, while the latter saw the Owls wilt before a lower-ranked Bulldogs squad.

Assistant Coach Efe Ustundag (Baker '99) noted, however, that the rankings should not serve as the be-all, end-all in determining outcomes.

"It's disappointing in that we lost to a lower-ranked team, but that day we lost to a better team, in reality," Ustundag said of the loss to Fresno State. "I don't think they're necessarily a better team than we are on a regular basis, but on that day they certainly were."

Continued...

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