USC
Virginia (NCAA Quarterfinals cont'd)
Trojans Take Down Top Seed In NCAA Quarters
May 17, 2009 | Men's Tennis
May 17, 2009
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - The USC men's tennis team refused to allow delays, rains, wind and an undefeated Virginia team shake its focus on an NCAA Quarterfinal upset, as the No. 8 Trojans shocked the top-seeded Cavaliers with a 4-0 sweep at Texas A&M's. George P. Mitchell Tennis Center. USC's winning effort began on Saturday, but the finishing touches came on Sunday thanks to a singles surge by the Trojans capped by a three-set clincher from senior Abdullah Magdas. USC now takes a 23-5 overall record into the NCAA Semifinals against No. 12 Texas at 1 p.m. CT on Monday (May 18) in College Station, Texas.
USC's last match against the Cavaliers had been a 4-1 loss in the 2007 NCAA Quarterfinals. This year, Virginia was rolling along on an undefeated run through the 2009 season until coming up against the Trojans. The upset win also was a landmark victory for USC head coach Peter Smith, who secured his 400th career win today. Smith now holds an overall career mark of 400-191 while continuing his 22nd season as a head coach.
Today, USC followed up Saturday's doubles point with straight-set wins at the top two slots by Robert Farah and Steve Johnson before Abdullah Magdas' third-set heroics sealed the deal on the Trojans' upset win and subsequent ticket to tomorrow's semifinals. USC's last appearance in the NCAA semis was in 2004 with a loss to Baylor in Tulsa, Okla., and its last NCAA Championship win was in 2002 in College Station.
The USC-Virginia NCAA Quarterfinal match had initially begun on Saturday (May 17), with the Trojans snagging the doubles point before rains interrupted competition. In the tense doubles point, USC prevailed with a tiebreaker win on court two to secure the early advantage before lightning warnings cleared the stadium in the early stages of singles play. Heavy rain has followed, putting the continuation of competition up in the air for the day. Still, USC has in its hands a big early boost with the doubles point on the board for the Trojans. At the No. 3 slot, USC's Matt Kecki / Jaak Poldma moved ahead with a break that gave the Trojans a 5-4 lead, and the pair pushed on with some strong service games and one last break of the Cavaliers for an 8-5 win. At the No. 1 and No. 2 position, the Trojans and the Cavaliers were battling. Just moments apart, both USC teams were able to get a break on their respective UVA opponents. For #59 Abdullah Magdas / Daniel Nguyen at No. 2, the break breathed new life into their match, pulling things even at 4-4. On court one, the break had similar effect for Robert Farah / Steve Johnson, tying things at 5-5. Johnson would hold on his next serve, but Virginia answered with a powerful run that lifted the Cavaliers past the Trojans, as #12 Inglot/Shabaz managed an 8-6 win over USC's #4 Farah/Johnson to leave the deciding match at No. 2. The No. 2 doubles match see-sawed, with the Trojans getting a 6-4 lead before the Cavaliers broke USC back twice to eventually pull ahead 8-7 for a chance to serve out the match. But Magdas/Nguyen persevered and snapped UVA's Barrick/Singh's momentum with a break to force a tiebreaker. There, the Trojans marched to a 5-0 lead. And although the Cavaliers closed in from 6-3 to 6-5, Nguyen went to the service line and anchored USC through match point to claim a 9-8 (5) win and a big doubles point for the Trojans.
Singles play resumed in a morning start today, with most matches on serve and no more than three games in. Amidst swirling winds, USC's #8 Robert Farah got up an early break against Virginia's high-powered #14 Dominic Inglot in both sets and remained in control on the way to a 6-3, 6-1 victory that put the Trojans up 2-0 in the match. Freshman #53 Steve Johnson was the first Trojan to get through his first set, topping #26 Sanam Singh 6-3 with a four-game run. Johnson got a 4-0 lead in the second and managed to push through a late Singh comeback attempt to boost USC up 3-0 with a 6-3, 6-4 decision.
The clinching match for USC was up in the air between Magdas' third-set push at No. 4 and a second-set tiebreaker that USC freshman Matt Kecki was rallying through. Kecki had taken the first set 6-3 and had come back from a 2-5 deficit to get into the deciding tiebreaker against Drew Courtney at the No. 5 position. Magdas would interrupt all that, however, as the senior shook off his loss in the first set with a strong second set to go to a third. There, #106 Magdas went up 5-1 and sidestepped UVA's #70 Houston Barrick's break and hold to serve out the match for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 decision that iced the upset win for the Trojans.
Magdas' clincher suspended singles play for Kecki in the second-set tiebreaker, along with Jaak Poldma's lead in the third set on court three and a Virginia advantage over Daniel Nguyen at No. 6.
NCAA QUARTERFINALS May 16, 2009 - College Station, Texas
#8 USC 4, #1 Virginia 0
DOUBLES
(1) #12 Inglot/Shabaz (UVA) def. #4 Farah/Johnson (USC) - 8-6
(2) #59 Magdas/Nguyen (USC) def. Barrick/Singh (UVA) - 9-8 (5)*
(3) Kecki/Poldma (USC) def. Courtney/Singer (UVA) - 8-5
Order of finish: 3, 1, 2
USC wins doubles point.
SINGLES
(1) #8 Robert Farah (USC) def. #14 Dominic Inglot (UVA) - 6-3, 6-1
(2) #53 Steve Johnson (USC) def. #26 Sanam Singh (UVA) - 6-3, 6-4
(3) #81 Jaak Poldma (USC) vs. #27 Michael Shabaz (UVA) - 7-5, 4-6, 4-1 susp.
(4) #106 Abdullah Magdas (USC) def. #70 Houston Barrack (UVA) - 4-6, 6-2, 6-3*
(5) Matt Kecki (USC) vs. Drew Courtney (UVA) - 6-3, 6-6 (2-0 susp.)
(6) Daniel Nguyen (USC) vs. #90 Lee Singer (UVA) - 6-7 (4), 2-5 susp.
Order of finish: 1, 2, 4
NCAA NOTES & QUOTES
POSTMATCH NOTES
USC advances to the NCAA semifinals for the first time since 2004. The Trojans will face 12th-seeded Texas on Monday at 1 p.m. (CT). The last time the top seed was knocked out of the team championship in the quarterfinals was top-seeded Stanford versus eighth-seeded Tennessee in 2001 in Athens, Ga. Ironically, the last lowest seed to beat the No. 1 favorite was 11th-seeded USC in the finals against top-seeded Georgia in the 2002 Championship held in College Station. The Trojans were the first team to defeat top-seeded and undefeated Virginia this season. Both teams completed doubles play on Saturday, before a rain delay moved the quarterfinal matches to Sunday morning.
POSTMATCH QUOTES
USC Head Coach Peter Smith
"It always amazes me, at this time of year, to watch the team that you've spent the last nine months with and see that no matter what's bothering them and no matter what issues they have, they just go out and give 100 percent. It's not that I don't normally see that. I know that they run into problems, but they just push it out of their heads and give it their all. I'm really proud of them for that. In 22 years of coaching, it (the rain delay and on Saturday) has never happened to me before. We kind of stole the doubles point yesterday, but two years ago, I felt they kind of stole the point from us in the quarters. It was pay back and I slept well last night. I'm going to sleep well during this time of year, because all of the hard work is done. All of the work that we've done over the last nine months - that's done. We just have to relax and let our game speak for itself and we know what type of game we have."
USC Senior Abdullah Magdas
"I played the same match here against A&M and on the same court (during the regular season). I was 5-1, serving for it, but we had lost the doubles match against them on 4-3, because I didn't finish it, serving for it twice. That was obviously a little in my head. I managed to somehow pull it out at 5-3. It wasn't easy. Houston (Barrick) was a good player and I've played him before in the fall. I was serving for it 5-4, five in the third and I lost in the breaker. All of these things add up, when you play these matches. Obviously, this is the most important match of the year. It's important to me, because it could be my last match since I'm a senior, so every match I'm treating it like something special."
Virginia Head Coach Brian Boland
"It was a long match, starting yesterday. We lost a difficult doubles point, but at the end of the day, I thought that we came in today believing we would win, whether or not we lost that doubles point. I certainly don't believe that it was the determining factor. We just gave them a little of momentum that was taken away from them, because of the delay we had last night and being able to pick up the match this morning. I guess the loss hasn't sunk in yet. They played really well. USC looked really sharp and they are extremely strong from top-to-bottom. Give them a lot of credit. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the match they played. They deserved to win today. They were the better team on the court. With that being said, we fought hard, but there were some things we needed to do better to find four points between USC today - or yesterday I should say, since it was a two-day match which is something that is new to us. We prepared well, we were well-conditioned and we left it on the court. It is just really disappointing to know that we've been back here now for our sixth-straight year, it never gets easier, but we'll keep coming back."
