April 20, 2007

Houston, Texas - No. 2 seed and 30th ranked Rice picked up the doubles points and collected three singles wins to earn a 4-0 victory over No. 7 seed Memphis (8-13) at the 2007 Conference USA Men's Tennis Championship Friday afternoon at the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas.

The Owls (14-10) will advance to the semifinals for the second-straight year and will face the winner of the final match of the day between No. 3 SMU and No. 6 Southern Miss at 3 p.m. Saturday. Rice advanced to the 2006 title match before falling 4-1 to defending tournament champion Tulsa.

The 53rd-ranked doubles team of Ralph Knupfer and Tobias Scheil secured Rice's doubles point with an 8-4 win over Memphis' Amrit Narasimhan and Benedikt Fischer. The pair now stands at 11-7 on the season. Jason Mok and Christoph Müller edged Memphis Jimmy Khougassian and Charlie Ramsay, 8-5, to take their doubles record to 10-6.

Filip Zivojinovic took No. 6 singles with identical 6-2 game scores over Spencer Heflin of Memphis. Rice also won the No. 4 and 5 matches as Scheil and Mok each picked up their respective matches for the Owls. Both players recorded straight-set wins, 6-1, 6-0, for Scheil and 6-1, 6-2 for Mok.

#2 Rice (14-10)          4
#7 Memphis (8-13)     0

SINGLES
1. #36 Ben Harknett, Rice vs. Amrit Narasimhan, Memphis, DNF (6-1, 4-2)
2. #120 Ralph Knupfer, Rice vs. Jimmy Khougassian, Memphis, DNF (5-7, 1-1)
3. Christoph Müller, Rice vs. Benedikt Fischer, Memphis, DNF (6-4, 2-0)
4. Tobias Scheil, Rice def. Charlie Ramsay, Memphis, 6-1, 6-0
5. Jason Mok, Rice def. Cody Loup, Memphis, 6-1, 6-2
6. Filip Zivojinovic, Rice def. Spencer Heflin, Memphis, 6-2, 6-2

Order of Finish: 6, 4, 5

DOUBLES
1. #53 Ralph Knupfer/Tobias Scheil, Rice def. Amrit Narasimhan/Benedikt Fischer, Memphis, 8-4
2. Jason Mok/Christoph Müller, Rice def. Jimmy Khougassian/Charlie Ramsay, Memphis, 8-5
3. Ben Harknett/Dennis Polyakov, Rice v. Spencer Heflin/Garrison Pilant, Memphis, DNF (8-7)

Order of Finish: 2, 1