The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Florida State
No. 5 Men's Tennis defeats No. 26 Florida State, 4-3
02.12.2011 | Men's Tennis
Feb. 12, 2011
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - No. 5 Texas (7-0) picked up the doubles point and added singles wins from junior Jean Andersen, sophomore Vasko Mladenov and the clincher from sophomore Daniel Whitehead in a 4-3 win at No. 26 Florida State (5-4) Saturday afternoon at FSU's Scott Speicher Tennis Center. At 7-0, Texas is off to its best start since the 2008 season, when it opened at 7-0 and went on to reach the NCAA title match. Texas improves to 7-0 all-time against Florida State.
The Horns opened the match by taking their seventh doubles point in as many matches. UT's fifth-ranked tandem of Andersen and senior Ed Corrie scored Texas' first win with an 8-5 defeat of Conor Smith and Vahid Mirzadeh at first doubles. UT's Kellen Damico and David Holiner nailed down the doubles point for Texas at second doubles, where they posted an 8-4 win over Andres Bucaro and Anderson Reed. FSU held on in a tiebreaker to win the match at third doubles.
Florida State got out of the gates quickly in the singles session and assumed a 2-1 lead behind victories at the first and fourth slots. Andersen evened the match at two with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Smith at third singles before Mladenov put UT on top for good with a 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over Jordan Kelly-Houston at fifth singles.
At sixth singles, UT's Whitehead took the first set off of FSU's Reed, 6-0, but Reed rallied to take the second set, 6-1 to force a third set. Reed broke Whitehead early on and broke once more for a 3-2 lead, but Whitehead took the remaining four games to win the set, 6-3 and nail down the victory for the Longhorns. At second singles, UT's Damico forced a third set with a 6-2 second-set win after dropping the first set to FSU's Clint Bowles. Damico fought back to slice en early deficit but fell in the third set, 6-4.
Texas resumes play on Friday, Feb. 18 at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships at The University of Washington. UT's first-round opponent has yet to be announced.
POST-MATCH COMMENTS
Texas head coach Michael Center
"The doubles point was very competitive. It was challenging to hold serve today. There were more service breaks than what we've seen for the most part this year. We got on top of them at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles and we were able to hold on for those wins. We lost the tiebreaker at No. 3, but overall, we played well."
"In singles, they jumped on us at Nos. 1 and 4. We ended up dropping those matches quickly and went down 2-1. Jean Andersen did a good job and played very well, and Vasko got off of his court to make it 3-2. Kellen Damico and Daniel Whitehead were out there battling, and Daniel was able to get that last point we needed. Kellen stayed out there and fought really well in his match. It was another hard-fought win for our guys. We've played in a lot of different environments, and we have been tested. We are happy to win, but we still have a lot of work to do."
#5 Texas 4, #26 Florida State 3
Doubles - Order of Finish: 1, 2, 3
1 #5 Andersen/Corrie (UT) def. Mirzadeh/Smith (FSU) - 8-5
2 #25 Damico/Holiner (UT) def. Andres Bucaro/Reed (FSU) - 8-4
3 Bowles/Davis (FSU) def. Chen/Mladenov (UT) - 8-7 (3)
Singles - Order of Finish: 1, 4, 3, 5, 6, 2
1 #42 Vahid Mirzadeh (FSU) def. Ed Corrie (UT) - 6-0, 6-1
2 #37 Clint Bowles (FSU) def. Kellen Damico (UT) - 7-5, 2-6, 6-4
3 Jean Andersen (UT) def. Connor Smith (FSU) - 6-4, 6-2
4 Blake Davis (FSU) def. #100 Ben Chen (UT) - 6-0, 6-0
5 #78 Vasko Mladenov (UT) def. Jordan Kelly-Houston (FSU) - 6-4, 7-6 (3)
6 Daniel Whitehead (UT) def. Anderson Reed (FSU) - 6-0, 1-6, 6-3
