Men's Tennis Resumes Homestand Against SMU
2/25/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Feb. 25, 2010
WACO, Texas- The 12th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team (8-2) will play the third match of a four-match homestand on Friday when it hosts No. 73 SMU (6-3) at 3 p.m. at the Baylor Tennis Center.
This season the Bears are 7-0 at home and will look to run their home win streak to 14 matches.
Live results for Friday's match can be found here.
SCOUTING SMU: The Mustangs enter Friday's match with a 6-3 record after winning three straight matches. During the stretch SMU has beaten Cameron, 7-0 and Southern Miss and Illinois Chicago both by 6-1 scores. This season the Mustangs are 3-0 at home, 1-2 on the road and 2-1 in neutral site contests. Carl Neufeld, who is in his 15th-year as head coach of the Mustangs, has a roster that features three seniors, four juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen.
PLAYERS TO WATCH: Junior Artem Baradach, who is 5-2 in the dual match season, leads the Mustangs at the No. 1 position. Fellow junior David Costa plays at the No. 2 spot and has also posted a 5-2. Pablo Perez-Espanaola has the best record of any Mustang after recording victories at the four, five and six positions. Overall, he holds a 7-1 record.
SERIES RECORD: The Mustangs hold a 28-16 overall record against the Bears with only 17 of those matches coming in the Matt Knoll era. Since his arrival at Baylor, the Bears are 14-3 versus the Mustangs and the Bears have won 13 straight matches over SMU.
LAST TIME AGAINST SMU: The 7th-ranked Bears and the 43rd-ranked Mustangs met in last season's opener with Baylor squeaking out a 4-3 win in Dallas. The Mustangs won the doubles point in the match to put the Bears down early, but Jordan Rux, Julian Bley, Attila Bucko and former Bear Marc Bruche all won their singles matches to secure the necessary four points.
CURRENT €ˆSTREAKS €ˆAND €ˆTRENDS: Overall, the Bears have won 23 of 26 matches dating back to last season. Baylor is 8-0 when winning the doubles point and 0-2 when losing it this season. Senior Denes Lukacs has won 27 of his last 31 matches overall, which includes an 8-0 start to this dual match season. Senior Domink Mueller has won eight of nine to start the dual match season, while junior Jordan Rux has won seven of eight.
WINNING AGAINST THE BEST: The Matt Knoll era has seen Baylor play 321 ranked opponents with the Bears going 236-86 in those matches. Last season the Bears were 20-6 against teams in the ITA's rankings of the top 75 college teams. Baylor's best year against ranked foes came in 2005 when they went 29-1 against the nation's elite with the only loss coming to No. 6 UCLA in the NCAA Tournament finals.
LAST €ˆTIME €ˆOUT: Baylor was scheduled to play Wednesday, Feb. 24 against third-ranked Ohio State, but the Buckeyes were a no-show at the match. On Sunday, Feb. 21 Baylor cruised to two 7-0 victories at the Baylor Tennis Center in its first doubleheader of the season. First the Bears knocked off Prairie View A&M while sitting their top three singles players and then Baylor took care of UT Arlington winning all of the singles matches in straight sets.
BLEY SPARKS TURNAROUND: Since being inserted in the lineup for the first time this season against No. 19 Alabama, sophomore Julian Bley has produced three straight singles victories by winning twice at the No. 6 position and once at the third spot in the lineup. Baylor is also 3-0 in the three matches that the Veitshoechheim, Germany, native has played singles after going 0-2 in the previous two contests.
LUKACS AND MUELLER CONTINUE MARCH: Two of Baylor's seniors, Denes Lukacs and Dominik Mueller, are moving up the ladder in the Baylor record books with each win. Currently, Lukacs has 122 career singles wins, 78 career dual match singles wins and a .808 winning percentage (122-29). He is second on the career wins list, tied for third on the dual match list and in fourth place on the percentage list. Mueller has 105 career singles wins, 81 career dual match singles wins and a .784 (105-29) winning percentage. He is fifth in career wins, second in dual match wins, and fifth in winning percentage.
BAYLOR IN THE RANKINGS: In rankings released by the ITA on February 24, Baylor moved up from No. 13 to No. 12 as a team. The Bears have been ranked as high as No. 5 in the country in the Feb. 12 edition of the rankings. Individually, Baylor is represented in the singles rankings by Denes Lukacs at No. 20 and Jordan Rux at No. 26. The Bears have three doubles tandems in the current rankings as Rux partners with Maros Horny to be the 15th-ranked pairing. Horny is also teamed with Lukacs to make up the 51st-ranked duo, while Julian Bley and Attila Bucko are currently ranked 60th.
HOME €ˆSWEET €ˆHOME: The friendly confines of the Baylor Tennis Center have been very kind to the Bears. Over the eight years of its existence, Baylor is 120-6 in matches played in Waco. Under Knoll the Bears are 162-21 when playing at home including matches played at the Streich Courts, the Baylor Tennis Center and various indoor courts in the area. Currently, the Bears hold a 13-match win streak at the Baylor Tennis Center and have won 25 out of 26 in Waco.
SHUTTING €ˆOUT €ˆTHE €ˆCOMPETITION: €ˆIn ten matches this spring, Baylor has blanked its opponent seven times. Six of the wins have been 7-0 victories over Louisiana-Lafayette, No. 58 Iowa, No. 38 TCU, UT-Pan American, Prairie View A&M and UT Arlington, while the Bears beat No. 19 Alabama, 4-0. All of last season the Bears only had eight 7-0 wins and blanked only 10 opponents.
OWNING €ˆNON-CONFERENCE €ˆOPPOSITION: The Knoll era has brought much success in non-conference play with Baylor sporting a 238-65 mark in non-league play over the last 13+ years.
Players Mentioned
