Men's Tennis Falls To No. 2 Seed Texas at Big 12 Tennis Championships

WACO, Texas ? The University of Colorado men’s tennis team’s bid for their first-ever victory over the Texas Longhorns ended Saturday afternoon, 4-0, at the Big 12 Tennis Championships semifinals hosted by the University of Baylor.

The Buffaloes (19-8) seeded No. 3 played from behind all day falling to the No. 2 seeded/No. t4 ranked Longhorns in the doubles point, then succumbing in the singles portion in three of the six slots.

Texas (21-3) moves into Sunday’s final against defending champion and top seed Baylor or No. 4 seed Oklahoma State in a match that will be played Saturday evening.

CU making their first semifinal appearance in 10 years, played an eight-hour marathon match against Texas Tech on Friday, failed in their attempt to upset the Longhorns who have beaten the Buffaloes in all 14 meetings head-to-head.

“Texas is a very tough team to beat,” said CU men’s coach Sam Winterbotham. “We have the confidence to beat the Top-20 and 30 ranked schools, now the next step is believing we can beat the top-10 programs.”

CU is 2-6 against the nation’s top-25 this spring, however are an impressive 11-2 against the top-26 through 75 schools.

Trailing 1-0 after losing the doubles point, the Buffs found themselves trailing 3-0 after the ?Horns took the No. 1 and No. 5 slots in straight sets. Eric Molnar’s bid to upset No. 11 Travis Helgeson a second straight time fell short 6-1, 6-3; while Chad Tsuda also lost in straight sets to Miguel Reyes Varela, 6-1, 6-2.

CU’s Jan Zelezny was on the verge of claiming CU’s first point with match point at No. 4 singles leading Milan Mihailovic, 6-2, 5-4, however, No. 46 Callum Beale of Texas defeated Marko Bundalo, 6-3, 6-2 for the clinching fourth point at No. 3.

Peter Bjork, the team leader in match wins this year with 27 was up a set over No. 33 Roger Gubser 6-3 and trailing 3-2 in the second.

The Buffs, who have won 10 of its last 13 matches since the conference season began back on March 26 are looking for their first NCAA Tournament bid since 1997. That announcement comes May 3.

Nationally ranked at No. 25, their highest ranking in the school’s history, the CU men have not shied away from playing elite competition, having lost only eight times this season with six of those to the nation’s top-15 schools and two others against No. 26 and No. 50. Three of those setbacks occurred against the Big 12 Conference, twice to Texas and once to Baylor.

Up next for the CU men’s team is the 2006 NCAA Division I men’s tennis selection announcement that will take place on Wednesday, May 3 on ESPNEWS. The men’s announcement will begin at approximately 2:30 p.m. Mountain time. ESPNEWS is located on DirecTV channel 207/DishNetwork channel 142. In addition, the ESPNEWS audio signal is available on the ESPNEWS channel on XM Radio and SIRIUS Radio.

No. t4 Texas 4, No. 25 Colorado 0

Texas (21-3), CU (19-8)

April 29, Waco, Texas, Big 12 Tennis Championships, Semifinal

1d) Beale/Reyes Varela (UT) def. Bundalo/Molnar 8-6

2d) Chodkiewicz/Gubser (UT) vs. Tsuda/Zelezny (CU) ? did not finish

3d) Helgeson/Luis Diaz Barriga (UT) def. Chizever/Dvorak 8-6

1s) (11) Travis Helgeson (UT) def. (59) Eric Molnar 6-1, 6-3

2s) (125) Peter Bjork (CU) vs. (33) Roger Gubser (UT) 6-3, 2-3 ? did not finish

3s) (46) Callum Beale (UT) def. Marko Bundalo 6-3, 6-2

4s) Jan Zelezny (CU) vs. Milan Mihailovic (UT) 6-2, 5-4 ? did not finish

5s) Miguel Reyes Varela (UT) def. Chad Tsuda 6-1, 6-2

6s) Marek Dvorak (CU) vs. Michael Venus (UT) 6-3, 0-6, 1-1 ? did not finish