Princeton University
Minnesota (Round of 64)
Players Mentioned
Minnesota Tops Men's Tennis 4-1 in NCAA Opener
May 08, 2015 | Men's Tennis
Video: Post-match with head coach Billy Pate and players Luke Gamble and Zack McCourt
A first NCAA team tournament berth in 17 years and more wins than any Princeton team this century will have to be where the milestones end for the Princeton men's tennis team this spring.
After Princeton took the doubles point, Minnesota won the first four singles matches to finish, taking the NCAA tournament opener 4-1 Friday at Virginia.
Princeton got off to a fast start in doubles play and altough the Golden Gophers had a surge to make the point tightly contested, Princeton got a win on court three from Diego Vives and Kial Kaiser and then the clincher from Luke Gamble and Alex Day on two to take a 1-0 lead.
But just as Princeton started well in doubles, Minnesota followed that path once singles play began, winning first sets on the top five courts. Wins on court five and then court two and court four put Minnesota up 3-1, and although the Tigers were in all three matches still on court, Minnesota's Leandro Toledo closed out a 6-3, 6-4 win over Zack McCourt in a battle of two national top-75 players. Alex Day, who had taken a 6-5 lead in set two after dropping the first frame, saw his match go unfinished, as did Kaiser, who won his first set before Minnesota's Mathieu Froment evened it up.
Princeton finishes the season at 19-8 overall, tying for the second-most wins in program history, a number most recently achieved in 1999.
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(36) Princeton (19-8) vs. (25) Minnesota (21-7) May 8, 2015 • Charlottesville, Va. |
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4 |
Doubles
| 1 | (53) Colautti/McCourt (P) | DNF | (37) Froment/Hamburg (M) | 6-6 |
| 2 | Day/Luke Gamble (P) | |
Corwin/Toledo (M) | 8-5 |
| 3 | Kaiser/Diego Vives (P) | |
Eric Frueh/Spec (M) | 8-4 |
Singles
| 1 | (75) Zack McCourt (P) | |
(22) Leandro Toledo (M) | 6-3, 6-4 |
| 2 | Tom Colautti (P) | |
(60) Matic Spec (M) | 7-5, 6-1 |
| 3 | Alex Day (P) | DNF | Felix Corwin (M) | 6-4, 5-6 M |
| 4 | Josh Yablon (P) | |
Ruben Weber (M) | 6-3, 6-4 |
| 5 | Dan Richardson (P) | |
Jack Hamburg (M) | 6-1, 6-2 |
| 6 | Kial Kaiser (P) | DNF | Mathieu Froment (M) | 6-3 P, 3-6 M |
| Match notes: Princeton now leads the series 3-2 after the teams' first meeting since 2002, which Minnesota won 7-0 in Malibu, California ... Princeton was aiming for its first NCAA tournament win since 1979. |
| Order of finish: Doubles: 3,2; Singles: 5,2,4,1 |
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Coach Billy Pate on the match: "Just getting to the tournament and getting the at-large berth was a step we needed to take. We were guarding against complacency or just being happy and patting ourselves on the back for making the tournament. We had a good shot today. I told the guys not to let the result today mar their experience of the NCAA or the year we've had. We have to make that step. We built a really good foundation and the future looks really bright." |