Friday, March 13, 2009

Wake Forest rallies against three straight match points for the victory

MYTRLE BEACH, S.C. (March 12, 2009) - In a match up that featured two ITA ranked teams the ETSU men's tennis team dropped a thriller to No. 17 Wake Forest, 4-3 Thursday afternoon at the Billy Nichols Tennis Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C. With the loss ETSU falls to 3-7 overall, while Wake Forest survives and improves to an 8-4 overall mark.

The No. 55-ranked Bucs opened play by dropping the doubles point 2-1 as Wake Forest rallied to take the opening matches in No. 1 and No. 3 doubles action. After seniors Enrique Olivares (Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela) and Alex Ahlgren (Tyreso, Sweden) fell to the No. 1-ranked doubles team in the nation in Cory Parr and Steven Forman, ETSU rebounded as sophomores Grega Teraz (Mojstrana, Slovenia) and Charles Bottoni (Bois Guillame, France) dropped Wake Forest's Ian Atkinson and Andrew Brasseaux, 6-5 ,(9-7) in one of the most exciting matches all season for ETSU. Unfortunately, for ETSU the Demon Deacons rallied in the final contest as Jonathan Wolf and David Hopkins defeated freshman Robin Akser (Ornskoldsvik, Sweden) and sophomore Daniel Isaza (Medellin, Columbia), 8-3.

As singles play opened No.15-ranked Olivares looked strong making quick work of No. 37-ranked Parr, 6-4, 6-3 knotting the match up at one point a piece. Wake Forest would then retake the lead temporarily as Isaza dropped to Hopkins 6-3, 3-6, 6-7.

However, ETSU would then go on and show its character winning two straight contests as Grega Teraz picked up his third win in his last four singles matches dropping Atkinson 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, while senior Alex Ahlgren extend the Bucs in lead in No. 6 singles action to a 3-2 advantage.

As each team continued to exchange points ETSU got its first chance to close out the match as freshman Sander Gille (Kuringen, Belgium) won his first set 6-2, however Wake Forest's Steven Forman would rally after dropping the opening fame and go on to win the final two sets 6-2, 6-2 tying the match at 3-3.

ETSU second chance came in the No. 4 singles contest as Charles Bottoni faced off against Jonathan Wolff. The Buc newcomer would jump out to the early lead taking the first set 7-6. As each player won game after game in the second fame Bottoni would find himself tied with Wolff at five games heading into the tie breaker. However, after fighting off three straight match-points Wolff rallied gaining the momentum by winning the tie-breaker 7-6. The Demon Deacon sophomore would go on to ease through the final fame 6-2 giving Wake Forest the 4-3 win.

"Charley (Charles Bottoni) played hard and you hate to see him and Sander lose a match that was exceptionally close," said head coach Yaser Zaatini. "I'm extremely proud of each our guys. This was a great match against a classy team in Wake Forest. It's been a long time since we have beaten them and to come so close today and lose is very heartbreaking for our team. Wake Forest is a great team and today they just somehow found a way to win in a close match. Our guys showed great effort and you never like to lose but I think this is a match that we can build on as we move forward."

ETSU will have a quick turn around returning to action Saturday with a 2:00 p.m., contest against Atlantic Sun Conference rival Kennesaw State, in Kennesaw, Ga. Currently, the Bucs are riding a 26 match A-Sun winning streak that dates back to April 14, 2006.