UK Men’s Tennis Defeats Harvard in Round of 16 Thriller
The No. 5 Kentucky Wildcats (27-2) defeated the No. 12 Harvard Crimson (22-7) 4-2 on a beautiful Lexington afternoon in the NCAA Sweet 16. In front of a large home crowd, the Wildcats won their 20th straight match to punch a ticket to the quarterfinals for the third year in a row and seventh time overall.
“I’m really proud of the boys,” UK head coach Cedric Kauffmann said. “Hardest workers in the country. They deserve this moment. But we don’t want to be done. We will go to Stillwater and try to keep it going.”
Graduate student Taha Baadi clinched the victory with a thrilling 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 win on court one over No. 15 Cooper Williams. The No. 28 ranked Baadi, who is no stranger to clinching big matches, won the first set, dropped the second, and broke serve at 3-3 in the third, despite being down 15-40 in the game. He converted a serve and volley to win a crucial deuce point (college tennis has no-ad scoring) to go up 5-3 and ended the match on a beautiful down the line backhand on another deuce point. Williams is arguably the top freshman in the country and has a ton of talent.
Kentucky continued their usual dynamic doubles play to sweep courts 1 and 2 and take a 1-0 lead. Baadi and Jack Loutit upped their record to 12-2 with a 6-4 win on court two. In a battle of titans, seniors JJ Mercer and Josh Lapadat, who are ranked No. 4 in the country, defeated the No. 19 Harvard pair 6-3 on court one to cap off the doubles. They battled back from 15-40 down in the final game thanks to some strong Lapadat serves. Court three was unfinished. UK has won 13 of their last 14 doubles points.
Harvard countered with a quick 6-0, 6-2 win on court three from Daniel Milavsky over sophomore Jaden Weekes to knot the overall score at one
As they have all year, Kentucky relied on their depth and strength at the bottom of the singles lineup to power to victory. Freshman Louisville native Eli Stephenson improved to 17-1 with a quick win on court six to put the Wildcats up 2-1
Sophomore Charlelie Cosnet, who clinched Kentucky’s quarterfinal berth last year, followed up five minutes later with a 6-4, 7-5 win on court 4 to put the ‘Cats on the brink. He is a stellar 21-3 this season.
Harvard wouldn’t go away easily, with Henry von der Schulenburg earning a hard fought 7-5, 6-4 win over Lapadat on court two. That set the stage for Baadi’s heroics. Fredhman Jack Loutit, the hero of the round of 32 match, was locked in a third set battle on court 5. His match went unfinished.
The teams were familiar with each other, with Kentucky winning the early regular season matchup 5-2 indoors in Lexington. Four of the six singles matchups today were rematches – UK won courts 1, 2 and 6 in the earlier matchup and lost court 3. All those results held today except Harvard won on court two.
Next up
Kentucky will travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma to play No. 4 TCU in the quarterfinals on Thursday, May 16. The ‘Cats haven’t lost since falling to 4-3 at Duke on February 11. Kentucky has advanced past the quarterfinals only once, when they knocked off TCU 4-3 in the quarters and finished national runner-up to Virginia in 2022. They won the SEC tournament both last year and this year. This is truly the golden age of Kentucky tennis.
Results
No. 1 Doubles: #4 Lapadat/Mercer (UK) DEF No. 19 Milavsky/Williams 6-3
No. 2 Doubles: Baadi/Loutit (UK) DEF Delloye/Jachuck 6-4
No. 3 Doubles: Stephenson/Weekes (UK) LED Pereral/Von der Schulenburg 6-5
Doubles Order of Finish:: 2, 1
No. 1 Singes: #28 Taha Baadi (UK) DEF #15 Cooper Williams 6-3, 2-6, 6-3
No. 2 Singles: #80 Josh Lapadat (UK) LOST TO No. 66 Henry von der Schulenburg 5-7, 4-6
No. 3 Singles: Jaden Weekes (UK) LOST To Daniel Milavsky 0-6, 2-6
No. 4 Singles: Charlelie Cosnet (UK) DEF Ronan Jachuck 6-4, 7-5
No. 5 Singles: Jack Loutit (UK) TRAILED Rohan Murali 7-5, 3-6, 1-2
No. 6 Singles: Eli Stephenson (UK) DEF Masato Perera 6-1, 7-5
Singles Order of Finish: 3, 6, 4, 2, 1
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