Men's Tennis Readies For Doubleheader
3/26/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
March 26, 2010
WACO, Texas- The 8th-ranked men's tennis team returns to the Baylor Tennis Center to host a doubleheader against Abilene Christian and St. Edward's at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday. It will be Baylor's second doubleheader of the season after sweeping Prairie View A&M and UT-Arlington by identical 7-0 scores on February 21 in Waco.
The Bears, who have not lost in Waco since March 21, 2009, will also be looking to protect a 16-match home win streak. Overall, Baylor is 13-3 on the season, which includes a 10-0 record at home, a 2-1 mark on the road and a 1-2 record in neutral site contests.
Live results for both matches can be found here.
LAST TIME OUT: The Bears return to the Baylor Tennis Center, after suffering only their third loss of the season on March 21. The top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers handed Baylor a 5-2 loss in Charlottesville, Va. to snap Baylor's eight-match win streak. The Bears lost the doubles point and then proceeded to only get singles wins from Attila Bucko and Roberto Maytin.
CURRENT TEAM STREAKS AND TRENDS: Overall, the Bears have won 28 of 32 matches dating back to last season. Coming into the match the Bears' will look to stop a one-match slide after enjoying an eight match win streak. The eight wins in a row was Baylor's longest streak of the season after starting the year with a five-match win streak.
DOUBLES POINT STREAKS AND TRENDS: With its doubles point loss to Virginia in the last match, Baylor has now lost three out of the last four doubles points after starting the year 10-2 in that category. Baylor is 11-0 in matches when winning the doubles point and just 2-3 when losing it.
SINGLES STREAKS AND TRENDS: Senior Denes Lukacs has won 31 of his last 36 matches overall, which includes a 12-2 start to this dual match season. Senior Dominik Mueller has won 12 of 15 to start the dual match season. Meanwhile at the No. 2 spot Jordan Rux is 11-2 and Attila Bucko is 10-2 at the third spot in the lineup.
BAYLOR IN DOUBLEHEADERS: Saturday's matches will be the second time Baylor has played a doubleheader this season. The Bears took both matches in the first doubleheader by 7-0 scores over Prairie View A&M and UT-Arlington. Last season Baylor was 6-0 in doubleheader matches. Under Matt Knoll, Baylor is 34-1 when playing more than one match on the same day. The Bears have not lost a match on a day they played multiple matches since March 7, 1998. The Bears were supposed to play a doubleheader earlier in the year on February 3, but it was cancelled due to inclement weather.
BAYLOR AT HOME: The friendly confines of the Baylor Tennis Center have been very kind to the Bears. Over the eight years of its existence, Baylor is 124-6 in matches played in Waco. Under Knoll the Bears are 164-21 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 16-match win streak at the Baylor Tennis Center and have won 32 out of the last 34 in Waco.
BAYLOR IN THE RANKINGS: In the latest rankings release by the ITA on March 23, Baylor as a team remained at No. 8 after knocking off 42nd-ranked TCU and losing to No. 1 Virginia. Individually, the Bears continued to have two singles players ranked as Lukacs and Rux came in at 16th and 28th, respectively. In doubles, the tandem of Rux and Maros Horny are ranked 33rd, while Horny partners with Lukacs to make up the 72nd-ranked team.
SCOUTING ABILENE CHRISTIAN: The Wildcats are currently 8-6 this spring, but will play East Central at 6 p.m. in Abilene on Friday before traveling to Waco to face the Bears. ACU lost its last match on Wednesday to Northwest Missouri State, 5-1. Before the loss Abilene Christian had won six straight matches. The Wildcats are just 1-3 this season in true road matches. Hutton Jones is in his 14th-year as the head coach at ACU.
SERIES RECORD: The Bears own a 6-3 mark over the Wildcats all-time. However, during the Matt Knoll era, Baylor has only played Abilene Christian once. The series began in 1977 and then seven more matches were played between the two schools over the next 15 years. Baylor is 4-1 against ACU in matches played in Waco and 2-2 against the Wildcats in Abilene.
LAST €ˆTIME €ˆAGAINST ABILENE CHRISTIAN: The Bears and Wildcats met on March 30, 2006 in the lone match up between the two schools during Matt Knoll's tenure at Baylor. In 2006, the Wildcats served as the Bears first opponent in a doubleheader as ACU will do on Saturday. In that match, the Bears' won all three doubles matches and swept all of the singles matches in straight sets.
SCOUTING ST. EDWARD'S: The Hilltoppers enter Saturday's match with a 6-7 mark, but will face conference rival Incarnate Word on Friday at 1 p.m. before traveling to Waco. St. Edward's has lost four of its last six matches, but did beat Northwest Missouri State on March 21 in the Hilltoppers last match out. Justin Raiti and Brett Powers lead St. Edwards with a 7-5 and a 6-4 record, respectively.
SERIES RECORD: The Bears, who are 13-1 against St. Edward's all-time, have had the upper hand on the Hilltoppers in a series that dates back to 1971. To open the series Baylor won eight straight matches, then lost its lone match in 1982, before reeling off five more straight victories. In the Matt Knoll era, Baylor has defeated the Hilltoppers twice, once in 2007 and again in 2009. Both of those matches were also part of doubleheaders as the Bears won both by 7-0 margins.
LAST €ˆTIME €ˆAGAINST ST. EDWARD'S: Last season, the Bears and Hilltoppers met on February 22 with Baylor earning a 7-0 victory. That match was the night cap to a doubleheader that also saw the Bears defeat sixth-ranked UCLA. In the match, Baylor took all three doubles points and won five of the six singles matches in straight sets.
WINNING AGAINST THE BEST: The Matt Knoll era has seen Baylor play 327 ranked opponents with the Bears going 240-87 in those matches. This year, Baylor is 8-3 against ranked teams. 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 it went 29-1 against the nation's elite with the only loss coming to No. 6 UCLA in the NCAA Tournament finals.
OWNING €ˆNON-CONFERENCE €ˆOPPOSITION: The Knoll era has brought success in non-conference play with Baylor sporting a 243-66 mark in non-league play over the last 13+ years.
LOOKING AHEAD: After Saturday's doubleheader the Bears will travel to Palo Alto, Calif. to battle No. 15 Stanford in the fourth installment of the HP Cup series on March 30. Baylor has won the first three matches of the series and holds a perfect 9-0 all-time record over the storied Cardinal program. The match is slated to begin at 3 p.m. (PT).
SHUTTING OUT THE COMPETITION: In 16 matches this spring, Baylor has blanked its opponent eight times. Seven of the wins have been 7-0 victories over Louisiana-Lafayette, No. 58 Iowa, No. 38 TCU, UT-Pan American, Prairie View A&M, UT Arlington and Laredo.
Quotes- Head coach Matt Knoll
On the benefits of playing a doubleheader:
"You just get more tennis in. We want to try to play as many matches as we can. On this day particularly we are going to do some different things with our doubles and kind of experiment around."
On playing this Saturday after a loss:
"It gets the guys back out there and gives them a chance to get back on track with some winning. We lost the last match we played, so it would be great to get everybody going in a positive way. Hopefully, we can get out and build some momentum again before we go out to California to play a really good Stanford team."
On his team's doubles play:
"We haven't really spent a lot of time working on it the last few weeks and we are going to try to sink our teeth into the doubles a little more now. We think have got a couple ideas on different combinations that might give us a better chance to be more competitive at all three spots. We are going to roll that out and see what we get out of it."
On his team's home match win streak:
"We have good players. I think that is the biggest thing. Then, I think it is always an advantage in any sport to play at home. You are just more comfortable in the surroundings. We have been lucky a couple times here and there, but we have good players and we have a lot of pride in playing at home. We certainly have the comfort level and we are lucky to have a great environment. It is not an easy place to come in and win, but all that is predicated on the quality of your players."
On the importance of using these matches to get prepared for conference play:
"I think the big thing is we just want to keep getting better. We feel like we have improved a lot. We feel like we have a good handle on who the guys are that we are going to go with. If we could firm up our doubles combinations I think that would be significant down the stretch."
Players Mentioned
