A strong season for the No. 24 Tech men’s tennis team came to an end when the team fell in its second match of the NCAA Tournament. Tech, playing at the Lexington Regional, took down Binghamton 4-1 on Saturday, May 15 in its opening-round match before losing 4-1 to regional host No. 11 Kentucky the following day. The Jackets ended the dual-match season 18-8 overall.
As the second seed in the Lexington Regional, the Jackets took to the court on Saturday to face the third seed of the regional—No. 47 Binghamton, the America East Conference champions.
All three of the doubles matches were fairly one-sided, but Tech took two of the three to secure the doubles point. Juniors Guillermo Gomez and Dean O’Brien rolled to victory on court three, dispatching Binghamton’s Bastian Bornkessel and Ruben Devos 8-1, but shortly afterward the No. 52 tandem of juniors Eliot Potvin and Ryan Smith dropped their court two match 8-2 to Alexandre Haggai and Moshe Levy to even things up. In the first match, the No. 70 duo of sophomore Kevin King and freshman Juan Spir took down the Bearcats’ Sven Vloedgraven and Gilbert Wong 8-3, and Tech moved ahead in the match 1-0.
Junior Miguel Muguruza extended Tech’s lead to 2-0 with a straight-set victory over Wong, 6-3, 6-4 in the fourth flight. The Bearcats got a victory on court five from Arnav Jain, who closed out Tech freshman Magin Ortiga 7-6 (7-5), 6-0 to cut the lead to 2-1. Two more straight-set victories gave Tech the match, though; No. 85 King trumped Levy 7-5, 6-2, and Spir defeated Devos 7-5, 6-3 to secure the match.
Later that day, host and top seed Kentucky took down fourth-seeded Cleveland State 4-0, setting up a Sunday battle between the Jackets and the Wildcats.
Sunday’s doubles play saw close battles in all three matches. The first match to finish was on court one, where the No. 22 pair of Eric Quigley and Brad Cox topped King and Spir 8-4. Kentucky went on to secure the point when Alex Musialek and Anthony Rossi defeated Gomez and O’Brien 8-6 on court three. The other matchup, which featured Potvin and Smith against Kentucky’s Alberto Gonzalez and Alex Lambropoulos, ended with the score tied 7-7 and was not finished after the Wildcats clinched the doubles point.
The first singles match to finish saw Tech getting on the scoreboard, as Potvin defeated Cox in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 to even the score at 1-1. Kentucky took a pair of matches in straight sets, though, to pull ahead. No. 12 Quigley handed Gomez a rare singles loss on court one with a 6-3, 6-4 decision, and Rossi took down Muguruza 6-4, 6-3. On court two, King pulled ahead of No. 49 Museliak with a first-set victory, but Museliak rebounded to win the final two sets and secure the victory for Kentucky as he defeated King 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.
While team play for Tech is over for the 2009-10 season, the team is represented by Gomez in the NCAA Singles Championship, which began on Wednesday. May 26. Gomez, the No. 4 overall seed in the individual tournament, beat his first opponent, Moritz Baumann, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.