Texas Tech Men's Tennis Defeats No. 39 Arkansas
June 21, 1999 | Men's Tennis
February 14, 1999
LUBBOCK, Texas - The Texas Tech men's tennis team battled back from trailing early in the match to hand #39 Arkansas their first defeat of the season. With the triumph, the team avenged a 4-3 loss last season at Fayetteville. The Red Raiders improve to 4-0 on the season as they begin Big 12 conference play next week; Arkansas drops to 4-1.
Arkansas opened the match strong taking the doubles point. The No. 2 team of Brad Berry and Chris Campbell defeated Jevgenij Cariov and Dustin Hawk 8-5 and No. 3 Henrik Tofft and John Deaton beat Adam Baranowski and Thomas Wheat 8-4. The No. 1 match between Ryan Shupe and Borut Martincevic and Oskar Johansson and Magnus Kullenberg was not finished.
Early in singles play, it looked as though Arkansas would ride the momentum from doubles to an easy victory. No.1 Martincevic, No. 2 Shupe and No. 4 Baranowski all dropped their first set. Martincevic went on to drop his match, but Shupe and Baranowski rebounded to claim three set victories. Perhaps the most impressive performance was Shupe against Henrik Toft rallying from down 6-5 in the third set to tie the game at six and wining the tie-breaker 7-4.
No. 3 Jevgenij Cariov and No. 6 Dustin Hawk remained undefeated by winning their two matches in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 and 6-4, 6-3 respectively. Neither player has dropped a set in the first four matches of 1999.
"It is always an incredible match when we play Arkansas," Director of Tennis Tim Siegel said. "After losing the doubles point and being down a set at No. 1, 2 and 4, I thought we might get swept 4-0. The turning point was when Jevgenij got us our first point of the match. After that, Ryan Shupe and Adam Baranowski showed great poise in coming back to win their matches. To beat two teams like Arkansas-Little Rock and Arkansas in the same weekend is incredible.
"It was a great college tennis match," Arkansas head coach Robert Cox said. "The longer that match went the more momentum shifted towards Texas Tech. We played great in doubles and excellent for the first hour of singles, but couldn't hold on. I think their maturity and experience in matches like this showed."
Texas Tech now hits the road for the first away matches of the year. The team plays at Boulder, Colo. against Colorado on Friday, February 19 and in Lincoln, Neb. against Nebraska on Sunday, February 21.
--TTU--
Match Score February 14, 1999 Athletic Training Center Lubbock, Texas Texas Tech 4 Ark 2 Singles No. 1 Oskar Johansson (Ark) d. Borut Martincevic (TTU) 6-3, 6-0 No. 2 Ryan Shupe (TTU) d. Herik Tofft (Ark) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) No. 3 Jevgenij Cariov (TTU) d. Magnus Kullenberg (Ark) 6-3, 6-4 No. 4 Adam Baranowski (TTU) d. Chris Campbell (Ark) 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 No. 5 Tiago Azevedo (Ark) vs. Petar Danolic (TTU) DNF No. 6 Dustin Hawk (TTU) d. John Deaton (Ark) 6-4, 6-3 Doubles No. 1 Shupe - Martincevic (TTU) vs. Johansson - Kullenberg (Ark) DNF No. 2 Berry - Campbell (Ark) d. Cariov - Hawk (TTU) 8-5 No. 3 Tofft - Deaton (Ark) d. Baranowski - Wheat (TTU) 8-4