April 20, 2002

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Baylor's men's tennis team defeated Texas A&M in College Station, 4-3, on Saturday evening to claim sole possession of the Big 12 Championship. It is the Bears' second Big 12 title in three seasons. The Bears move to 22-1 overall and 7-0 in Big 12 action.

All three matches in doubles were hard-fought affairs. The two teams split at No. 1 and No. 3 doubles. Baylor's Reiner Neurohr and Matias Marin won the first match of the day with an 8-4 victory over Keith From and Ante Matijevic at No. 3. However, the Aggies evened the doubles when at No. 1, Ryan Newport and Lester Cook beat Markus Hornung and Nathan McGregor 8-6. The doubles point now came down to the No. 2 position. In a match that featured five service breaks, Baylor's Benjamin Becker and Zoltan Papp were up 7-6 with the Aggies' Jarin Skube serving. The Baylor duo was trailing 0-30 but reeled off three straight points to go up 40-30. The Aggies countered to make it deuce then the Bears earned the next two points to secure the match and the doubles point for Baylor.

Singles proved to be just as dramatic as the doubles were. Needing to win three singles to win the contest, the Bears produced in gut wrenching style. Texas A&M's Khaled El Dorry got the Aggies on the board with a 6-1, 6-2 victory at No. 6 over Armando Carrascosa. Next, Baylor's Zoltan Papp won his eighth consecutive match and 34th of the season with a 6-4, 6-2 victory at No. 2 over Keith From. Benjamin Becker secured Baylor's third point and his 12th consecutive singles victory with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Ryan Newport at No. 1. The drama intensified when Jarin Skube gave the Aggies their second point with a win at No. 5 singles, 6-4, 6-3, over Reiner Neurohr. At this point, two matches remained on the courts. Markus Hornung and Lester Cook were dueling it out at No. 3 and Matias Marin and Ante Matijevic at No. 4. Hornung took an early 4-1 first set lead but Cook stormed back and eventually evened the score at 6-6. Hornung took the tiebreaker 7-5 to earn the first set. He went on to take the second set 6-2 to give the Bears' their fourth point of the night. The Marin/Matijevic match finished approximately 10 minutes later with Matijevic posting a 6-4, 7-5 victory.

The victory extended the Bears' current win streak to a school record tying 13 matches. Baylor also had 13 consecutive wins when they opened the 1999 campaign with 13 straight wins.

The victory makes the Bears the No. 1 seed in the upcoming Big 12 Tournament, hosted by Texas A&M. Competition runs from April 25-28.

Baylor 4, Texas A&M 3

Singles
1. #6 Benjamin Becker, BU def. #46 Ryan Newport, TAMU 6-3, 6-4
2. #42 Zoltan Papp, BU def. Keith From, TAMU 6-4, 6-2
3. #78 Markus Hornung, BU def. Lester Cook, TAMU 7-6(5), 6-2
4. Ante Matijevic, TAMU def. Matias Marin, BU 6-4, 7-5
5. Jarin Skube, TAMU def. Reiner Neurohr, BU 6-4, 6-3
6. Khaled El Dorry, TAMU def. Armando Carrascosa, BU 6-1, 6-2

Doubles
1. #20 Newport/Cook, TAMU def. #10 Hornung/McGregor, BU 8-6
2. Becker/Papp, BU def. Skube/Derrick Bauer, TAMU 8-6
3. Neurohr/Marin, BU def. From/Matijevic, TAMU 8-4