No. 13 Kentucky Too Much for No. 45 Miami, 5-2

March 18, 2009

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Coral Gables, Fla. – No. 13 Kentucky (12-4) took five-of-six singles matches after falling in two-of-three doubles spots, earning a 5-2 victory over the No. 45 Miami Hurricanes (6-6) in a non-conference men’s tennis matchup Wednesday evening at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center in Coral Gables, Fla.

Miami opened up the match taking the doubles point as they collected wins at the first and third flight, respectively.

“I’m happy our team finally pulled together in doubles,” admitted UM head coach Marion Rincon, a former All-American tennis player at Kentucky. “All three positions played well today.”

The doubles matches started off with the team of Daniel Vallverdu and David Rosenfeld taking an 8-3 upset of Kentucky’s 22nd-ranked team of Bruno Agostinelli and Brad Cox at the first flight doubles slot. UM then collected an 8-4 win at the No. 3 spot with the help of Christian Blocker and David Simon defeating Alberto Gonzalez and Alex Musialek.

The No. 2 doubles set was taken by Kentucky’s Graeme Dyce and Eric Quigley, as the duo fought from a 4-1 deficit to collect a hard-earned 8-7(7-5) win over Miami’s Keith Crowley and Carl Sundberg in one of the most entertaining doubles matches of the evening.

With the Hurricanes leading 1-0 after the doubles point, the overcast skies of South Florida started to open up a bit as the rain delayed the start of singles play for 1 hour and 20 minutes. When the rain departed, Kentucky did not seemed phased as the Wildcats took three quick straight-set wins to begin, earning a 3-1 advantage.

No. 111 Eric Quigley of Kentucky started the singles session at the third position with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over David Simon (11-8). After falling in the first set, Simon rebounded to take a 3-1 lead in the second set before Quigley closed out the match on a 5-1 advantage to get the win.

At the second spot, Brad Cox of Kentucky upset Miami’s No. 117 Christian Blocker (5-6) in straight sets (6-4, 6-3). The match was largely followed by the crowd as Blocker battled back from a first-set deficit, only to take a 3-1 advantage in the second set. Cox then broke Blocker’s serve to collect the final five games for the heated 6-3 second-set victory.

Alberto Gonzalez used a 6-4, 6-2 line to defeat Miami’s Ignacio Taboada (16-10) at the No. 6 spot to put Kentucky up, 3-1 as a team, in the match.

Refusing to go down quietly, the Hurricanes surged back at the No. 5 position on the strength of No. 90 Carl Sundberg (12-5) as he collected a 6-1, 6-4 win over Graeme Dyce. With the first-set win for the `Canes, Sundberg fell behind in the second set, 3-0, before battling back to take three consecutive games, tying the match, 3-3.

Dyce then took the next game to go back up by one, but Sundberg was resilient yet again as he battled back to collect the next three games en route to the 6-4 victory.

For Sundberg, he collected his 10th win of the spring campaign, improving to 9-1 in his last 10 matches for the Hurricanes.

The Wildcats would close-out the match at the No. 4 singles spot with Alex Musialek taking a 7-6(8), 6-1 win over Miami’s David Rosenfeld (6-8). The final win for the Wildcats came from fifth-ranked Bruno Agostinelli of Kentucky downing Miami’s 29th-ranked Daniel Vallverdu (6-2, 6-4) at the No. 1 slot. Vallverdu never seemed in sync throughout the match, and it took its toll on the All-American as he left several shots long, or was forced into unforced errors in the net.

“Obviously, Danny [Vallverdu] is not playing his best tennis right now,” stated Rincon afterwards. “Hopefully, he’s going to get it together, along with [David] Rosenfeld, and be ready when we need them.”

Vallverdu fell to 9-4 on the year, and evened his record at 2-2 in the spring.

“Kentucky is one of the best teams in the country, and they play great first sets,” expressed Rincon. “They were taking a lot of chances, and it worked for them today. We need to put this loss behind us and be ready for UNC when we get back to ACC play this weekend.”

Miami will next take on No. 34 North Carolina on Friday, Mar. 20 in Chapel Hill as the `Canes step back into Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) play. For UM, it will be the fifth road match in the last seven contests.

“I don’t think playing on the road has affected us at all,” stated Rincon. “We just played a better team today.”

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