April 22, 2006

Tulsa, Okla. - Top-seed Rice was the first team to earn a spot in the 2006 Conference USA Men's Tennis Championship match after taking a 4-1 decision from No. 4 seed UAB Saturday at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center. The Owls will face the winner of the second semifinal between No. 2 SMU and No. 3 Tulsa on Sunday at 12 p.m.

Rice picked up the doubles point after posting a pair of 8-4 victories. The No. 1 team of Robert Searle and Tony Hearle, who is ranked 20th in the country, defeated Anton Mavrin and Johannes Spangenberg, while the No. 3 tandem of Rodrigo Gabriel and Jason Mok defeated Kristijan Mitrovski and Thomas Weiss.

"I think we played okay, particularly in doubles," Rice head coach Ron Smarr said. "I was pleased with the way we played doubles - singles a couple of places we just were not in it mentally and it showed."

The singles points did not come easy for the Owls as UAB won the first set in four of the six matches. Rice did get to three points with a pair of straight set wins from Ben Harknett in the No. 2 hole and Jason Mok in the No. 6 hole.

"Searle did a good job, because he hasn't played," Smarr added. "He's probably playing at 70 percent, at best. But we did what we had to do to win the match. We kind of got in trouble when I don't think we should have been, but we still had what it took to get the W."

The Blazers picked up their lone point of the match in the No. 4 singles match as Andre Maier registered a straight set win over Filip Zivojinovic, 6-3, 6-1. This set up an exciting finish as the last three matches all reached three sets before Searle capped off the victory with a win in the No. 1 singles match.

The Owls secured the match after the 29th-ranked Searle rallied from a set down to defeat Mavrin, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. The other two singles matches were in the third set, with the Owls leading both by a game when play was halted.

A newcomer to C-USA this season, the Owls will be making their third-straight conference championship title appearance. Rice lost the 2005 WAC title after capturing that crown in 2004.

Singles
#29 Robert Searle (Rice) def. Anton Mavrin (UAB), 2-6, 6-2, 6-4
#122 Ben Harknett (Rice) def. Sebastian Falk (UAB), 6-1, 7-6
Kristijan Mitrovski (UAB) vs. Tony Haerle (RU)
Andre Maier (UAB) def. Filip Zivojinovic (RU), 6-3, 6-1
Johannes Spangenberg (UAB) vs. Christoph Müller (RU)
Jason Mok (Rice) def. Kruno Despotovski (UAB), 6-4, 6-2

Doubles
#20 Haerle/Searle (Rice) def. Mavrin/Spangenberg (UAB), 8-4
Falk/Maier (UAB) vs. Harknett/Müller (RU), dnf
Gabriel/Mok (Rice) def. Mitrovski/Thomas Weiss (UAB), 8-4