AAC Individual Championships
My Experience at the Inaugural AAC Individual Championships
Last week, I had the chance to watch some high-level tennis at the Inaugural AAC Individual Championships. All AAC tennis members were at the event eager to claim a Individual or Doubles Championship, and to clinch a spot at the ITA Conference Masters Championships. The Conference Masters qualified a total of four singles players and three doubles tandems on both the women’s and men’s side for the NCAA Individual Championships.
On the singles side the biggest upset happened on Thursday when the #1 seed Pablo Alemany lost to the eventual finalist Danijal Muminovic in three tight sets. The Spaniard later lost in the first round of consolation against Emir Sendogan from the Owls in three sets again. The Rice team demonstrated that they are a darkhorse for this conference championship this year as both of their players went deep in the consolation round (Arthus de la Bassetiere winning the consolation bracket and Emir Sendogan losing in the semifinals). On Thursday, the #3 seed from Charlotte, Vasco Prata, lost to fellow compatriot Martim Marujo from Temple in a match where Marujo seemed to be cramping and suffering from some back pain. However, he still managed to get victorious with a 6-4 in the third set. On Friday the #2 seed, Tiago Torres, from UTSA lost to the #10 seed Luca Petrovic from Tulane in two very tight sets. The final on Sunday resulted in the sophomore from Tulsa, Alex Okonkwo, winning 6-2, 6-0. I had the pleasure of being present for the match. Muminovic started off the match well with an early break and went up 2-1 in the first set, but then lost two very tight games and returned the advantage to Okonkwo who broke him, 3-2. Okonkwo went further and won the next 9 straight games to win the match 6-2, 6-0, and crown himself as the first AAC Men's Individual Champion.
On the doubles side of the draw, everything was pretty straightforward. Matches were best to 8 games until the semifinals, when we saw some high level doubles. The last semifinals match saw the Rice tandem of Artus de la Bassetiere and Kabeer Kapasi play against the Tulane tandem and eventual finalists Luka Petrovic and Luc Joeijmans. The Tulane tandem won 4-6, 7-6(6), 13-11, in the final set tiebreak, and they saved 2 match points to prevail in an incredible final set tiebreak. On the other side of the draw the tandem from Charlotte of Vasco Prata and Matias Iturbe beat the tandem from Wichita State 7-5, 6-3. In the final, the Charlotte tandem looked as if they would win the match in straight sets, but the Tulane tandem won the first set 8-6 in the first set. The Charlotte tandem then took the second set 6-2, and then went to win the final set tie break 10-6 to crown themselves as the AAC Men’s Doubles Champion.
I had a great experience at the AAC Men’s Individual Championship and I would like to take teh opportunity to thank Rice for hosting the teams and the College Tennis fans with an amazing setup and atmosphere during the whole week.
I will be writing more articles in the next couple of weeks, but for now please be sure to like the post.
Thanks,
EVI