Kentucky's Liam Draxl falls in NCAA Tournament Sweet 16

Liam Draxl’s — and Kentucky Men’s Tennis’ — run at the NCAA Tournament has come to an end. The Cats’ senior team captain lost to Stanford’s Arthur Fery 6-1, 6-1, in the Sweet 16 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando earlier today.

Draxl went the furthest of Kentucky’s three representatives in the NCAA Tournament, beating UNC’s Brian Cernoch (6-0, 6-4) and TCU’s Jake Fearnley (2-6, 6-3, 6-3) to advance to the Sweet 16. Grad transfer Alafia Ayeni lost in the first round to Ohio State’s James Trotter (7-6, 2-6, 5-7) while junior Joshua Lapadat beat Presbyterian’s Dusan Milanovic in straight sets before losing a third-set tiebreaker to UVA’s Chris Rodesch (5-7, 6-4, 6-7) in the second round.

This was Draxl’s third NCAA Tournament appearance at Kentucky, his deepest run coming as a sophomore when he made the semifinals as the No. 1 overall seed. This was actually the second time in two weeks he lost to Fery, the No. 3 ranked player in the country. The Stanford star also beat Draxl in the NCAA Tournament team Super Regional (6-6, 7-6) in Lexington on May 13.

Kentucky went on to beat Stanford and advance to the NCAA quarterfinals in Orlando, where they lost to Virginia 4-2. It was the sixth time the Cats have reached the quarterfinals and marks the first time in which they were among the final eight teams in two consecutive seasons after reaching the national championship match a year ago.

Congrats to Draxl, Lapadat, Ayeni, and the entire team on a great season.