Mens Tennis: Bright moments for Irish can't keep Mustangs at bay
By JOE LINDSLEY
Sports Writer
It was a great day for two Irish singles players and one doubles duo, but a tough day for the team as No. 49 Southern Methodist defeated No. 55 Notre Dame in a closely-contested 4-3 match Sunday.
Junior tri-captain Luis Haddock and sophomore Brent D'Amico had personal proud moments, though, as they each triumphed over players ranked in the top 60 nationally.
With both teams splitting the singles matches, the Mustangs, who moved to 10-7 on the season, were able to survive by securing the doubles point.
Notre Dame, 6-11 on the season, has become familiar with close matches this season. Sunday's loss was the fifth 4-3 defeat for the Irish this season. Those losses were all to challenging teams — No. 28 Indiana, No. 37 Florida State, No. 47 Northwestern, No. 56 Tulsa and now SMU. Michigan State and No. 50 Purdue are the only teams Notre Dame has defeated in 4-3 matches.
The match culminated with four matches that extended to three sets, and with the top two flights finishing in final-set tiebreakers.
Haddock, playing at the No. 1 flight, upset No. 55 Johan Brunstrom, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 to put Notre Dame within a point of the win, but No. 87 Lukasz Senczyszyn prevailed over junior tri-captain Matt Scott to hand the victory to the Mustangs.
D'Amico finished off No. 52 Gwinyai Chingoka, 6-4, 6-2 to obtain the first Notre Dame singles win. The Irish sophomore had never topped a player rated that highly before.
After SMU's Peter Oredsson defeated Irish freshman Patrick Buchanan 6-2, 6-4, Irish junior Nicolas Lopez-Acevedo survived a three-set fight with Henrik Soderberg, 2-6, 6-3, 6-1, to tie the match. With the Sunday win, Lopez-Acevedo put to rest a three-match losing streak.
After the Irish had tied the event, the Mustangs' Alexis Rudzinski put his team on the verge of victory with his defeat of senior tri-captain Brian Farrell. Rudzinski outlasted his opponent 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.
The Mustangs began strong by winning the first two doubles matches to leave the court. Eric Cohn and Ryan Mauck won 8-6 over Farrell and Haddock at the No. 2 position and Chingoka and Senczyszyn topped the duo of junior Ben Hatten and sophomore Paul McNaughton, 8-4.
The Irish did enjoy an upset at the No. 1 flight. D'Amico and Scott, who were on a three-match losing streak together, claimed their second defeat of a ranked team this season Sunday. The Irish pair defeated the 55th-ranked partnership of Ryan Livesay and Dustin Taylor, 9-8.
Notre Dame is now preparing for its penultimate home contest of the season when No. 61 Ball State comes to the Eck Pavilion. After that, the Irish will go on the road with hopes of improving their NCAA Tournament chances by upsetting No. 13 Kentucky. Then the Irish will complete the regular season back at home against No. 67 Indiana State.
All Sports Stories for Monday, April 7, 2003
