Feb. 16, 2007

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The University of Memphis men's tennis team (2-3) rallied back after losing the doubles point, but managed just three singles victories in a 4-3 loss to No. 54 Mississippi State in non-conference action at WellWorx, Friday night.

Mississippi State went up early, 1-0, by sweeping the doubles point. MSU had won No. 1 and 2 doubles, but the Tigers' No. 3 team of Garrison Pilant and Spencer Heflin had battled back from a 6-1 deficit to pull to 6-3 before trading points in the next two service games. But the deficit was too deep for the doubles tandem and the Bulldogs claimed the doubles sweep with an 8-5 win at No. 3.

In singles, Christopher Doerr put Mississippi State up 2-0 with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Tezar Putra at No. 6 singles. Ryan Farlow followed with a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 5 singles and when Philippe Frayssinaux defeated Jimmy Khougassian 6-4, 7-5 at No. 1, Mississippi State had picked up its second win of the spring.

But the most acrobatic shots throughout the night belonged to Tiger freshman Charlie Ramsay. Ramsay came back from a first set 6-2 loss to claim the second set 6-3. With the match already decided, the coaches opted to play a 10-point tiebreak since Ramsay and Pjotrs Necajevs had split sets. Ramsay jumped up early in the tie break 4-0, but Necajevs battled back to knot the tiebreak at 6-6. Necajevs would manage one more point before Ramsay would close out the victory, 10-7, and give Memphis its first point of the night.

Sophomore Benedikt Fischer would follow, with a straight set 6-4, 6-2 win to make the match 4-2 following the No. 3 singles match, leaving the No. 2 match between Amrit Narasimhan and Ivan Bjelica the final match on the court. The No. 2 match went all the way to 7-5 in the first set, with Narasimhan prevailing. He was up 5-2 in the second set before Ivan Bjelica stormed all the way back to 5-4 down. Serving for the match, Narasimhan won the first two points on his serve, and when a Narasimhan serve was called in by the officials on hand, he had triple match point. But Bjelica battled off two match points before Narasimhan used a strong serve down the T to close out the win, 6-4.

No. 54 Mississippi State 4, Memphis 3
Doubles
No. 1 - Philippe Frayssinoux/Ivan Bjelica def. Amrit Narasimhan/Benedikt Fischer (UM), 8-3
No. 2 - Artem Kuznetsov/Pjotrs Necajevs def. Charlie Ramsay/Jimmy Khougassian (UM), 8-4
No. 3 - Christopher Doerr/Ryan Farlow def. Garrison Pilant/Spencer Heflin (UM), 8-5
Singles
No. 1 - No. 31 Philippe Frayssinoux def. Jimmy Khougassian (UM), 6-4, 7-5
No. 2 - Amrit Narasimhan (UM) def. No. 32 Ivan Bjelica, 7-5, 6-4
No. 3 - Benedikt Fischer (UM) def. Artem Kuznetsov,6-4, 6-2
No. 4 - Charlie Ramsay (UM) def. Pjotrs Necajevs, 2-6, 6-3, 10-7
No. 5 - Ryan Farlow def. Cody Loup (UM), 6-3, 6-3
No. 6 - Christopher Doerr def. Tezar Putra (UM), 6-2, 6-1