It’s been a really long week for the UK men’s tennis team and myself. Last Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday,
we dropped a tough match against Notre Dame again. For the second time in a week we lost 4-3 with a match point in the last remaining match. My fellow sophomore Kevin Lai was up 6-1, 5-3 and couldn’t finish the job. He ended up losing 12 straight points in the second and then lost 6-4 in the third.
You can imagine how long the drive back was with our heads down. No one was talking too much in the bus and the snow made the 6 hour drive an 8 hour drive back. Luckily we had the sleeper bus with TVs, beds, a couch, restrooms… so we can’t really complain about the conditions UK Athletics provides for our travel and we still got to watch the Super Bowl (or only the commercials and halftime show for me, since I still don’t understand the rules of American football. Haha.)
[caption id="attachment_151480" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Volunteer assistant coach Anthony Rossi, Grant Roberts and Kevin Lai chilling in the sleeper bus.[/caption]
After three days of practice, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we traveled to Columbus, Ohio to take on No. 5 Ohio State. The match was on Friday, February 7th.
Ohio State's home win streak was 179 consecutive matches at home before our match and we were so ready to end it and bounce back after those two back-to-back loss against Notre Dame.
The match was scheduled at 6 pm, and as we started the doubles, a big crowd was there, as expected. Really loud, really aggressive. People talk to you between the points. A
really tough environment and you have to be really focused to keep your composure and not react to comments. I said nothing, like Wimbledon for example.
Niels Ellefsen and Ryuji Hirooka, still undefeated this year, won 6-4 on Court 3. Beck Pennington and Alejandro Gomez lost in the tie breaker 6-5, so everything came down to court to court 1 where I was playing with Kevin Lai against No. 7 in the nation Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka. We were up 5-4 in the tie break when Kevin served a bomb and Kobelt returned a ball way out, when the reality of college tennis came back to me. We will never know who is right or who is wrong on calls, but truth is that, just like during the entire match , it seemed like the referee had a little favoritism on the court. He didn’t want to judge that the ball landed before the service line in, BUT OUT ! But we were still up 6-5 and had a match point when Ohio State was serving but we missed it and ended up losing the tie break 8-6. That was the third match in row that UK had match point to win the double point.
[caption id="attachment_151481" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
This picture show you how close the people are when they are watching.[/caption]
We knew we still had a chance to come back and win 4 singles out of 6. The toughest part is not to say it, but to go out there and fight all the way. I didn’t start my singles match bad, but when the referee calls some of your balls that land on the line, out, twice in the same game, obviously that makes the task even harder. It also makes it easier for the opponent to get to 4 points in one game. It looked like my opponent Peter Kobelt was good at this cheating game and always found the best moment to make the worst call . Probably the worst I’ve had to face in my college career so far. I mean let’s be honest, we practice every single day and trust me, when you hit a forehand down the line, you see the ball land in front of you, and it is really not hard to judge if the ball touches the line or if it doesn’t. I don’t believe that he has such bad eyes and he would make the wrong call 6 or 7 times without doing it on purpose. Anyways, I ended up losing all the important points, and lost the first set 6-1.
I started playing farther away from the line so this wouldn’t have happen in the second set. Those matches where you are on the road, where you really are by yourself on the court against your opponent, and the crowd is the kind of match where you have to find solutions and keep your composure -- somehow,
those are the matches that I enjoy the most.
During my match, for example, I wasn’t wearing Kentucky blue shorts but navy blue shorts and people in the stands were reminding me from time to time, if not after every point, that I forgot my shorts in Kentucky. People over there in Ohio State would find anything they could find to bother us. Well, enough to say that it was tough but that’s part of college tennis. Oh, and I also had the chance to
play in front of 10 Ohio state football players, big guys that probably don’t even know the rules of tennis but didn’t do anything but scream every time I was missing a shot. They even repeated everything I was telling myself out loud in French. I won the second set 6-3 and when I looked at the overall scoreboard, we were down 3-0.
Jerry Lopez lost 6-1, 6-3 and Kevin Lai lost 6-1, 6-2.
Grant Roberts, Alejandro Gomez and Beck Pennington were all in the third set as well.
Peter Kobelt, who was No. 1 in the country last year, started being more aggressive and broke me twice to win the third 6-1. No need to tell you how bad it feels when you are
the one to lose the deciding match.
The play was suspended on the remaining courts. Gomez was down 3-2 in the final set, while Grant Roberts was tied 3-3 in his third. No. 55 Pennington was down 3-2 in the third when they stopped the match. I asked them all how they were playing and they all told me they think they had their match. This made me really upset at myself, but when you left everything you had on the court, there is nothing that can really make you feel better.
Or maybe the taste of McDonalds fries. Here’s the team at McDonald's on the way back to Lexington...
Talking with Coach Rossi on the way back, he admitted that he thinks we are a good team but we are just lacking some toughness. Out there we were competing but not fighting. The difference is going to come at practice. If the whole team gets tougher together, then we will have more chances against top 10 teams like that. Our ranking dropped to No. 17 in the nation and that is where we belong right now. The fact that we won't play the national indoor next weekend gives the team a full week of practice, and he told me this is not going to a be fun week.
*****
We were
back on the court against No. 50 Michigan State Sunday afternoon. What seems like an easy match, when you look at the rankings, is never the reality. Michigan State tennis team came to Lexington really hungry and you could hear it as they were all warming up scream "GO GREEN, GO WHITE, GO STATE."
UK won the doubles point with a signature win from Hirooka/Ellefsen 8-4 at doubles #2 and Pennington/Gold won 8-7 on court 3.
In singles, Michigan State quickly squared the match at 1-1 overall, as No. 55 Beck Pennington fell in straight sets to Aaron Pfister of Michigan State.
I gave UK the lead back at 2-1 when I won 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 against Drew Lied.
No. 97 Kevin Lai broke through in three sets as well, knocking off Gijs Linders on court four to give Kentucky the 3-1 lead. Kevin saved 2 match points and that was a really good win for his confidence, said coach Rossi after the match.
Finally, freshman Jerry Lopez, who was down 7-6, 5-1, battled back and fought all the way till his opponent, John Patrick Mullane, cramped in the third set and Jerry won 6-7, 7-6, 6-3. I have to give a big shoutout to coach Rossi for that unbelievable coaching performance this weekend.
[caption id="attachment_151483" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Jerry Lopez clinched the match for the Wildcats.[/caption]
When I asked Rossi after the match what went through his mind coaching those two matches, he said that he had mixed feelings throughout the day. Kevin hasn’t been playing so well the past few matches and it was the first time he was coaching him in singles. I asked him what he told him to pump him up and how he found the right words. He admitted that he took a little risk to put even more pressure on Kevin's shoulders at the beginning of the third set, asking him “Are you going to show me some today or what?" He said he kept telling him to battle and fight and that eventually his moment will come. Saving those two match points are going to give him confidence for the future.
It was a similar situation for Jerry Lopez and Rossi believes Jerry’s attitude was the key to reverse the match. “Jerry arrived from Mexico one month ago and he seems like a hard worker, he hasn’t showed us his best tennis yet, but its coming week after week. “
Watch us close out our matches below:
We only have one more match o
n the road in Oklahoma City on February 21st before the beginning of SEC regular season play, when we hit the road to LSU on February 28th.
I will keep you updated.
Go Cats.
@Tom_4_real
Volunteer assistant coach Anthony Rossi, Grant Roberts and Kevin Lai chilling in the sleeper bus.[/caption]
After three days of practice, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we traveled to Columbus, Ohio to take on No. 5 Ohio State. The match was on Friday, February 7th.
Ohio State's home win streak was 179 consecutive matches at home before our match and we were so ready to end it and bounce back after those two back-to-back loss against Notre Dame.
The match was scheduled at 6 pm, and as we started the doubles, a big crowd was there, as expected. Really loud, really aggressive. People talk to you between the points. A really tough environment and you have to be really focused to keep your composure and not react to comments. I said nothing, like Wimbledon for example.
Niels Ellefsen and Ryuji Hirooka, still undefeated this year, won 6-4 on Court 3. Beck Pennington and Alejandro Gomez lost in the tie breaker 6-5, so everything came down to court to court 1 where I was playing with Kevin Lai against No. 7 in the nation Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka. We were up 5-4 in the tie break when Kevin served a bomb and Kobelt returned a ball way out, when the reality of college tennis came back to me. We will never know who is right or who is wrong on calls, but truth is that, just like during the entire match , it seemed like the referee had a little favoritism on the court. He didn’t want to judge that the ball landed before the service line in, BUT OUT ! But we were still up 6-5 and had a match point when Ohio State was serving but we missed it and ended up losing the tie break 8-6. That was the third match in row that UK had match point to win the double point.
[caption id="attachment_151481" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
This picture show you how close the people are when they are watching.[/caption]
We knew we still had a chance to come back and win 4 singles out of 6. The toughest part is not to say it, but to go out there and fight all the way. I didn’t start my singles match bad, but when the referee calls some of your balls that land on the line, out, twice in the same game, obviously that makes the task even harder. It also makes it easier for the opponent to get to 4 points in one game. It looked like my opponent Peter Kobelt was good at this cheating game and always found the best moment to make the worst call . Probably the worst I’ve had to face in my college career so far. I mean let’s be honest, we practice every single day and trust me, when you hit a forehand down the line, you see the ball land in front of you, and it is really not hard to judge if the ball touches the line or if it doesn’t. I don’t believe that he has such bad eyes and he would make the wrong call 6 or 7 times without doing it on purpose. Anyways, I ended up losing all the important points, and lost the first set 6-1.
I started playing farther away from the line so this wouldn’t have happen in the second set. Those matches where you are on the road, where you really are by yourself on the court against your opponent, and the crowd is the kind of match where you have to find solutions and keep your composure -- somehow, those are the matches that I enjoy the most.
During my match, for example, I wasn’t wearing Kentucky blue shorts but navy blue shorts and people in the stands were reminding me from time to time, if not after every point, that I forgot my shorts in Kentucky. People over there in Ohio State would find anything they could find to bother us. Well, enough to say that it was tough but that’s part of college tennis. Oh, and I also had the chance to play in front of 10 Ohio state football players, big guys that probably don’t even know the rules of tennis but didn’t do anything but scream every time I was missing a shot. They even repeated everything I was telling myself out loud in French. I won the second set 6-3 and when I looked at the overall scoreboard, we were down 3-0.
Jerry Lopez lost 6-1, 6-3 and Kevin Lai lost 6-1, 6-2.
Grant Roberts, Alejandro Gomez and Beck Pennington were all in the third set as well.
Peter Kobelt, who was No. 1 in the country last year, started being more aggressive and broke me twice to win the third 6-1. No need to tell you how bad it feels when you are the one to lose the deciding match.
The play was suspended on the remaining courts. Gomez was down 3-2 in the final set, while Grant Roberts was tied 3-3 in his third. No. 55 Pennington was down 3-2 in the third when they stopped the match. I asked them all how they were playing and they all told me they think they had their match. This made me really upset at myself, but when you left everything you had on the court, there is nothing that can really make you feel better.
Or maybe the taste of McDonalds fries. Here’s the team at McDonald's on the way back to Lexington...
Talking with Coach Rossi on the way back, he admitted that he thinks we are a good team but we are just lacking some toughness. Out there we were competing but not fighting. The difference is going to come at practice. If the whole team gets tougher together, then we will have more chances against top 10 teams like that. Our ranking dropped to No. 17 in the nation and that is where we belong right now. The fact that we won't play the national indoor next weekend gives the team a full week of practice, and he told me this is not going to a be fun week.
*****
We were back on the court against No. 50 Michigan State Sunday afternoon. What seems like an easy match, when you look at the rankings, is never the reality. Michigan State tennis team came to Lexington really hungry and you could hear it as they were all warming up scream "GO GREEN, GO WHITE, GO STATE."
UK won the doubles point with a signature win from Hirooka/Ellefsen 8-4 at doubles #2 and Pennington/Gold won 8-7 on court 3.
In singles, Michigan State quickly squared the match at 1-1 overall, as No. 55 Beck Pennington fell in straight sets to Aaron Pfister of Michigan State.
I gave UK the lead back at 2-1 when I won 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 against Drew Lied.
No. 97 Kevin Lai broke through in three sets as well, knocking off Gijs Linders on court four to give Kentucky the 3-1 lead. Kevin saved 2 match points and that was a really good win for his confidence, said coach Rossi after the match.
Finally, freshman Jerry Lopez, who was down 7-6, 5-1, battled back and fought all the way till his opponent, John Patrick Mullane, cramped in the third set and Jerry won 6-7, 7-6, 6-3. I have to give a big shoutout to coach Rossi for that unbelievable coaching performance this weekend.
[caption id="attachment_151483" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Jerry Lopez clinched the match for the Wildcats.[/caption]
When I asked Rossi after the match what went through his mind coaching those two matches, he said that he had mixed feelings throughout the day. Kevin hasn’t been playing so well the past few matches and it was the first time he was coaching him in singles. I asked him what he told him to pump him up and how he found the right words. He admitted that he took a little risk to put even more pressure on Kevin's shoulders at the beginning of the third set, asking him “Are you going to show me some today or what?" He said he kept telling him to battle and fight and that eventually his moment will come. Saving those two match points are going to give him confidence for the future.
It was a similar situation for Jerry Lopez and Rossi believes Jerry’s attitude was the key to reverse the match. “Jerry arrived from Mexico one month ago and he seems like a hard worker, he hasn’t showed us his best tennis yet, but its coming week after week. “
Watch us close out our matches below:
We only have one more match on the road in Oklahoma City on February 21st before the beginning of SEC regular season play, when we hit the road to LSU on February 28th.
I will keep you updated.
Go Cats.
@Tom_4_real
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