Tulane University
UAB
Men's Tennis Comeback Falls Short Against UAB
Apr 2, 2011 | Men's Tennis
April 2, 2011
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - After finding themselves down 3-0 to UAB on Saturday, the Tulane men's tennis team could have just bowed out peacefully, but the Green Wave decided to fight back only to come up just short in a 4-3 loss to the Blazers in the second day of the 2011 Conference USA Shootout at the Southern Miss Tennis Courts.
UAB (5-9, 1-2C-USA) jumped out of the gate early and took the doubles point and proceeded to win the first two singles matches before Tulane (8-10, 1-6 C-USA) won the next three singles matches to pull even, 3-3.
"This was a really tough match against a very experience UAB team," Tulane head coach Mark Booras said. "They jumped out in doubles and jumped on us early in singles. We did a good job climbing back into the match after getting down 3-0, but just couldn't finish it off at the end. Today was a great example of a tough college match. It was a dog fight right from the beginning until the end."
UAB's Tom Puetz' 6-4, 7-6, victory over Holger Norregaard on court five was the deciding match, but the Tulane freshman did not go down easily. Norregaard trailed 3-0 in the second set before battling back to force a tiebreaker.
The Green Wave's Idan Mark, Shaye Wali and Rodrigo Rappaccioli each won in singles. Mark defeated Lucas Dirube, 6-4, 6-1, on court one, Wali won, 6-3, 6-0, over Danny Manlow on court three, while Rappaccioli earned a 7-6, 6-0, victory over Daniel Moser on court four.
The doubles team of Adam Bernstein and Takuma Ohashi recorded an 8-7 victory over UAB's Daniel Moser and Dirube on court three.
"The next step is to recover for tomorrow," Booras added. "Southern Miss is another good team that will compete hard so we have to come out tomorrow and let go of today's loss and come back and get a win."
Tulane will conclude the C-USA Shootout Sunday against host Southern Miss at 2 p.m. CDT.
Players Mentioned
