May 29, 2007

IRVING, Texas - Conference USA men's tennis players who qualified for the 2007 NCAA Singles and Doubles championship concluded play last weekend in Athens, Ga. The league's top men's player and No. 7 in the latest FILA/ITA rankings, Arnau Brugues of Tulsa, had another impressive showing. The junior achieved All-American status for the second straight season and advanced further than any other Tulsa player in the modern format when he advanced to the quarterfinals.

TULSA
The University of Tulsa's Arnau Brugues saw his run at the 2007 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Singles Championship in Athens, Ga. come to an end on Saturday morning with a 6-0, 6-2 loss to Somdev Devvarman of Virginia.

The No. 7 ranked Brugues, the tournament's No. 6 seed, fell to 31-7 on the season and 19-7 against ranked competition after falling to Devvarman, who was the No. 2 seed in the tournament.

Despite the loss, Brugues still advanced farther in the NCAA Championships than any other Tulsa player since the modern format was established in 1977.

His 31 wins in a season also give him the fourth best singles season win total in school history.

To advance to the quarterfinals, Brugues notched 7-6, 6-4 win over Pepperdine's Andre Begemann on Friday. In the second round on Thursday, Brugues notched a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over Ohio State's Daniel Mullings. In the first round of the event Brugues notched a 6-2, 6-2 win over UCLA's Chris Surapol.

TU's doubles team of Diego Camacho and Ross Cunningham ended their trip to the 2007 Men's Tennis Doubles Championship with a 7-6, 6-4 loss to the duo of Markus Dickhardt and Christian Groh from San Diego State in the tournament's opening round.

With the losses, the Tulsa men's tennis team wraps up a season in which it set multiple school records. Brugues attained the highest individual ranking ever for a TU player when he climbed to No. 2 in the nation, while the team as a whole also set a new ranking high after earning a No. 16 ranking.

The Hurricane won its second straight Conference USA championship and finished the season ranked No. 22 in the nation in the final rankings.

RICE
Rice's Ben Harknett saw his collegiate career come to a close on Thursday afternoon with a tough 7-6 (4), 7-5 loss to fifth-seeded and sixth-ranked Steven Moneke of Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA men's tennis singles championship in Athens, Ga.

After a slow start, the 38th-ranked Harknett stormed back from a 5-1 deficit in the first set to take a 6-5 lead. The Buckeye rallied to force a tiebreak where he edged the Owl to take the opening stanza. In the second frame, Harknett picked up the pace to build a 4-2 advantage before Moneke responded by winning three-straight games to take a 5-4 lead. Harknett continued to battle, holding serve to make it 5-5, but Moneke stayed solid to hold on for the decision.

Harknett swept Philip Therp of UC-Santa Barbara 6-4, 6-4 in the opening round.

Harknett finishes his final collegiate campaign with a 17-14 mark in singles after making his first appearance in the NCAA individual championships.