Tennis Drops 4-1 Match To No. 10 Texas A&M

AUSTIN, Texas ? The University of Colorado men’s tennis team bid for an upset in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament came up short falling to No. 2 seed and No. 10 nationally ranked Texas A&M, 4-1, Friday morning at the Penick-Alison Tennis Center in Austin, Texas.

The Buffaloes entered the tournament as the No. 7 seed and end the season at 9-15, while the Aggies (15-7) advance to the quarterfinals to play the winner of No. 3 Oklahoma State (16) or No. 6 Oklahoma (56).

CU did lead in the early stages of the match at the No. 2 and No. 3 singles slots. Marko Bundalo, ranked No. 97^th nationally was leading the No. 77 Ante Matijevic, 7-6, 1-6, 1-0, as well as Peter Bjork at No. 3. Bjork won his opening set 6-4 and was trailing in the third at a set apiece.

Chad Tsuda claimed the lone point for the No. 56 ranked Buffaloes at No. 6 (7-6(5), 6-4). Tsuda broke six-match losing streak and won his team-best 12^th spring dual match. For the 2004-05 season, Tsuda won 17 matches.

In doubles, Marek Dvorak and Jan Zelezny recorded their 12th match victory and third straight win at No. 3 doubles winning the their slot, 8-6. It was their team-best 13^th doubles triumph as a tandem.

Colorado Head Coach Sam Winterbotham

On earning a tough doubles point over Texas A&M:

"Texas A&M is a good team, they are a top-15 team. When you play a team like that you have to take the opportunities when they are presented to you. We create a couple opportunities a match and it's a case of capitalizing on those. Today, we weren't able to capitalize the opportunity we had in doubles. To A&M's credit, they weathered the storm and then came at us. They came out in singles and took two pretty quick matches that put us behind the eight ball."

Thoughts on the season in general:

"I think the University of Colorado is becoming a very good tennis program. Teams are taking us seriously now. They know that they are in for a tough match with us. I think that is a credit to our conference. All the men's teams are ranked now and that necessarily wasn't the case in the past. We are going to continue to move up in the rankings. Next year, we will be even better than this year and we will see if we can start knocking off some of these top teams."

Texas A&M Head Coach Tim Cass

On the victory over Colorado:

"We have a lot of respect for Colorado. They played us well a few weeks ago. The doubles turned into a pretty good point. I thought we did a real good job at number two doubles when we got a break of controlling our serve the last two times we served. I was really pleased with that. In singles, it was a little tricky. For us to have to pull out our number two guy and to beat them 4-1 and be up in the third set in the last two matches on ... I was pleased with."

No. 10 Texas A&M 4, No. 56 Colorado 1

No. 2 seed A&M (15-7), No. 7 seed CU (9-15)

April 29, Penick-Alison Tennis Center, Austin, Texas

Doubles

1) (20) Joelson/Matijevic (A&M) def. Tsuda/Digliodo 8-1

2) Wooten/Zack Malmgren (A&M) def. Bundalo/Bjork 8-6

3) Dvorak/Zelezny (CU) def. Bain/Makowski 8-6

Singles

1) (14) Jerry Makowski (A&M) def. Jan Zelezny 7-5, 6-4

2) (97) Marko Bundalo (CU) vs. (77) Ante Matijevic (A&M) ? did not finish

3) Peter Bjork (CU) vs. Bryan Wooten (A&M) ? did not finish

4) Brett Joelson (A&M) def. Marcos Digliodo 6-0, 6-1