University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
Oklahoma State
Gophers Take Doubles Point in Loss
1/31/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
The No. 22 University of Minnesota (2-2) came into Stillwater, Okla., to take on a red hot No. 25 Oklahoma State (6-1) team and fell 6-1 despite coming away with the doubles point.
The Gophers took the double point in impressive fashion. No. 20 Matic Spec and Felix Corwin teamed up together against No. 9 Julian Cash and Arjun Kadhe in a rematch of the ITA Central Region Championship match from this fall. Just like the fall, Corwin and Spec pulled off the upset as they cruised to a 6-2 victory at the No. 1 doubles spot.
No. 53 Lukas Finzelberg and Jurence Mendoza evened up the doubles score with a 6-3 win over Josip Krstanovic and Justyn Levin.
With it all coming down to the No. 2 spot, senior Ruben Weber and freshman Marino Alpeza found themselves locked in a back and forth battle with Temur Ismailov and Lucas Gerch. The OSU duo won three straight games to go up 6-5 but Weber and Alpeza bounced back to send it into a tiebreak. They took the tiebreak 7-4 giving the Gophers the doubles point.
No. 68 Cash topped No. 101 Corwin at the No. 2 spot in the matches first completed singles match (6-2, 6-1) to even the score. Gerch followed to give the Cowboys a lead beating Levin (6-4, 6-3) in the No. 4 spot.
Meraut won (6-3, 6-4) over Krstanovic at the No. 5 spot to put OSU one victory away from sealing the match. That final did not come easy as the Gophers gutted it out in the No. 1, 3 and 6 spots.
Alpeza found himself in an old fashioned battle with Finzelberg but came up just short. Finzelberg who closed out a win for the Cowboys against No. 11 ranked Wake Forest on Friday did it again topping Alpeza (7-5, 7-5).
With the remaining two matches in a third set the two teams decided to play them out. No. 95 Weber took a 7-5 first set victory over No. 112 Kadhe but dropped the second 6-3. Weber also dropped the third set 6-2 to lose his first dual match of the season.
After losing the first set 6-4 to Ismailov, Spec bounced back to take the second 7-6 (4) pushing it to a third set at the No. 1 spot. Ismailov pulled out the third set 6-3 in the afternoon's final match.
The Gophers return to the Baseline Tennis Center next weekend to take on South Florida and Wisconsin. They have a 16 match win streak at home and have not lost there since April 6, 2014. They will face South Florida at 6 p.m. on Friday and Wisconsin at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
#25 Oklahoma State 6, #22 Minnesota 1
Singles competition
1. Temur Ismailov (OSU) def. Matic Spec (MINN) 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3
2. #68 Julian Cash (OSU) def. #101 Felix Corwin (MINN) 6-2, 6-1
3. #112 Arjun Kadhe (OSU) def. #95 Ruben Weber (MINN) 5-7, 6-3, 6-2
4. Lucas Gerch (OSU) def. Justyn Levin (MINN) 6-4, 6-3
5. Tristan Meraut (OSU) def. Josip Krstanovic (MINN) 6-3, 6-4
6. Lukas Finzelberg (OSU) def. Marino Alpeza (MINN) 7-5, 7-5
Doubles competition
1. #20 Felix Corwin/Matic Spec (MINN) def. #9 Arjun Kadhe/Julian Cash (OSU) 6-2
2. Marino Alpeza/Ruben Weber (MINN) def. Temur Ismailov/Lucas Gerch (OSU) 7-6 (7-4)
3. #53 Lukas Finzelberg/Jurence Mendoza (OSU) def. Justyn Levin/Josip Krstanovic (MINN) 6-3
Order of Finish: Doubles (1,3,2) Singles (2,4,5,6,3,1)
Players Mentioned
