March 28, 2010

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Memphis men's tennis team rallied down 1-0 after losing the doubles point to upend conference rival Southern Miss, 4-3, on Sunday in Hattiesburg, Miss. With the win, the Tigers improve to 9-9 on the season.

To open the match, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles captured two of the three doubles matches over their opponents from the Bluff City. At No. 1 doubles, David Henry and Jordan Smith picked up their 13th victory of the season with a 8-5 win over Jan Burmeister and Julien Roussel. Henry and Smith are 13-3 as a doubles tandem during the 2010 season.

The Golden Eagles picked up a victory at the No. 2 doubles spot with a 8-4 victory by Diego Machuca and Markus Wessinghage over Michael Janz and John Taylor. The Memphis pair falls to a 6-3 mark on the season.

At No. 3 doubles, Southern Miss' Patricio Alvarado and Strate Krstevski upended Charlie Ramsay and Michael Gaerthoeffner, 8-2.

In singles, the Tigers used victories from Henry at No. 2 singles, Ramsay at the No. 3 spot, Janz at the No. 4 slot and Gaerthoeffner at No. 6 singles, to rally from 1-0 down to pick up the victory over the Golden Eagles on Sunday.

With Henry's 6-3, 7-6 win over Machuca at the No. 2 singles spot, the sophomore from Signal Mountain, Tenn., improves to 8-9 on the season.

Ramsay, a senior from Chattanooga, Tenn., picked up his eighth singles win over the season with a 7-6, 6-3 victory over Burmeister.

Janz' win at No. 4 singles over Roussel, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3, improved his overall record to 9-9 in his first season with the Tigers after moving to Memphis from Lousanne, Switzerland in the fall of 2009.

At No. 6 singles, Gaerthoeffner, a senior from Rheine, Germany, defeated Krstevski in three sets, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3. The win was Gaerthoeffner's 12th of the season to lead the Tigers in singles victories so far this season.

Sunday's win over Southern Miss marks the Tigers second straight victories over the Golden Eagles. Memphis defeated the Golden Eagles 4-3 on April 5.