Bob Larson's Tennis News | MTN: 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship Quarterfinals Match Results: #3 Ohio State 4, #6 Baylor 1

NCAA Division I Tennis Championships
Men's Quarterfinals
May 17, 2009
George P. Mitchell Tennis Center
College Station Texas

#3 Ohio State 4, #6 Baylor 1

RECORDS: Ohio State 35-1; Baylor 26-6

SINGLES
1. (#3) Bryan Koniecko, OSU vs. (#4) Denes Lukacs, BU, 3-6, 4-3, DNF
2. (#9) Steven Moneke, OSU def. (#45) Jordan Rux, BU, 6-3, 6-1
3. (#25) Justin Kronauge, OSU def. Julian Bley, BU, 6-1, 6-0
4. (#124) Dominik Mueller, BU def. (#113) Matt Allare, OSU, 6-2, 6-3
5. (#74) Balazs Novak, OSU def. (#121) Attilla Bucko, BU, 6-0, 6-2
6. Chase Buchanan, OSU vs. Maros Horny, BU, 7-5, 2-1, DNF

DOUBLES
1. Kronauge/Allare, OSU def. (#18) Galic/Rux, BU, 8-3
2. Uzawa/Koniecko, OSU vs. (#64) Horny/Lukacs, BU, 7-5, DNF
3. Buchanan/Moneke, OSU def. Bley/Mueller, BU, 8-5

ORDER OF FINISH: Doubles: 1, 3; Singles: 4, 3, 2, 5

NOTES: After being eliminated in the quarterfinals in each of the last two years, Ohio State advances to the semifinals and will face the winner between No. 2 Mississippi and No. 7 UCLA on Monday at 5 p.m...OSU’s victory snaps Baylor’s 15-match winning streak...Baylor, which won the national championship in 2004, falls in the quarterfinals for the second consecutive year.

QUOTES:
Ohio State Head Coach Ty Tucker: "Obviously it was a good day. It feels good for the seniors, to see them work so hard. They have been in three previous quarterfinals, and this was their fourth quarterfinal. You start to wonder if you're going to make it through to a final four and experience what that is like. Koniecko, Moneke, and Uzawa have been great leaders throughout the year. They came into the locker room today and said, 'we've got to get it done, we've got to get it done from the first point on.' We were able to establish leads quickly in the doubles point. We let Baylor get back into the doubles point, well maybe not let them back in, but they picked up their level of play. They came out a touch flat in the beginning. In singles, we knew we had good match ups. We knew that it would be tough for them to handle us at three, and tough for them to handle us at five. Kronauge and Novak hurt them at three and five. I'm not trying to be arrogant, but when I looked down, in no time we were up 6-1, and 6-0, 3-1, and 4-1. That's a lot of pressure off of a lot of guys. Baylor is an unbelievable program along with Georgia. From 2000 to now, this decade, who's been better than Baylor? To be able to get the monkey off the back, and to do it against Baylor, it's awfully good."

Baylor Head Coach Matt Knoll: "Those guys are good. They were just too good for us. I thought my guys fought as hard as they could. Clearly a great performance from Dominik (Mueller), but Ohio State is just too good for us. They are very strong at two positions. Doubles is not one of their obvious strengths, so that was a point we thought we had a chance to get. To not get that one made it a bigger challenge in singles, but we still thought we had four in singles that we might be able to get. We got off to a poor start in all three doubles matches. Denes (Lukacs) lost his serve right off the bat, Jordan (Rux) lost his serve, and Julian (Bley) lost his serve at three, so we were down a break before we really got our teeth into the matches. We were able to break back at one, but then got hammered after that. The matches at two and three, we were battling and we thought we could get around the corner, but we just couldn't get there. They made us play a ton of balls, and we just couldn't get back on track after we got behind. They beat us up. We had a pretty good year. We've played them twice and now it's 11-1. They are going to be hard to beat. They've got a great blend of youth and experience. Their guys at the top are really seasoned. It's going to be tough to get four points against those guys. Everybody in the semifinals is clearly very good but their pretty rough."