April 11, 2004
WACO, Texas - Baylor's men's tennis team claimed its third consecutive Big 12 title and fourth in the last five years with a 7-0 blanking of Oklahoma State on Sunday afternoon at the DeBois Tennis Center in Stillwater, Okla. For the third consecutive season, the Bears cruised through league play undefeated.
The Bears, ranked second nationally, raised their season record to 22-2 and completed league play at 7-0 while 26th-ranked Oklahoma State is now 13-3 overall and 2-2 in Big 12 action. Three Bears, Benedikt Dorsch, Benjamin Becker and Ivor Lovrak, all completed league singles play undefeated. In addition, the doubles tandems of Becker and Matias Marin and Lovrak and Reiner Neurohr were undefeated.
Two Bears moved to the top of a couple of Baylor career lists. Junior Benjamin Becker claimed his 100th career singles victory to move into No. 1 on the Baylor career singles list, passing former Bear Zoltan Papp. Senior Matias Marin won his 73rd career dual match to tie with Papp at the top of that list.
In doubles action, No. 20 Benedikt Dorsch and Matija Zgaga trailed OSU's Boris Kuharic and Yevgen Bondarchuk, 7-4. But, Dorsch and Zgaga rallied and took the match to a tiebreaker that they eventually won. The Bears went on to sweep doubles at Nos. 2 and 3 as well. The Bears quickly won three singles matches in straight sets to clinch the match. The final three matches all went down to the wire in three sets.
At No. 3 singles, No. 90 Matias Marin won the first set 6-4 but Tomas Bohunicky came back to win the second set 6-2. The third set was even, but Marin was able to win a break that proved to be the difference and won the third set 6-4.
Boris Kuharic was the only Cowboy to win a first set, but he dropped the final two to Matija Zgaga at No. 4. In the third set, Kuharic trailed in the third set 5-2, but rallied to take a 6-5 advantage. Zgaga forced a tiebreaker, and eventually came out on top.
The match of the day was played at No. 1 singles. OSU's Mark Van Elden, undefeated in Big 12 play, faced third-ranked Dorsch. Dorsch won eight of the first nine games to claim the first set and he held a three to one lead in the second set. Van Elden rallied to win the next five games and take the second set 6-3. In the third set, Van Elden went up a break to take 4-2 lead. Dorsch got the break back and evened the match up at four. Dorsch then went on to close out the match and gave Baylor the shutout with a 6-4 win in the third set to hand Van Elden his first loss of the season.
The Bears return home for their final regular season match of the year when they host SMU on Thursday, April 15 at 6 p.m.
No. 2 Baylor 7, No. 26 Oklahoma State 0
Singles
No. 1 No. 3 Benedikt Dorsch (BU) def. No. 25 Mark Van Elden (OSU) 6-1, 3-6, 4-6
No. 2 No. 10 Benjamin Becker (BU) def. Yevgen Bondarchuk (OSU) 6-1, 6-4
No. 3 No. 90 Matias Marin (BU) def. No. 109 Tomas Bohunicky (OSU) 6-4, 2-6, 6-4
No. 4 No. 102 Matija Zgaga (BU) def. Boris Kuharic (OSU) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6
No. 5 Reiner Neurohr (BU) def. Daniel Byrnes (OSU) 7-5, 6-4
No. 6 Ivor Lovrak (BU) def. Juan Felipe Diaz (OSU) 6-4, 6-3
Doubles
No. 1 No. 20 Dorsch/Zgaga (BU) def. Bondarchuk/Kuharic (OSU) 9-8
No. 2 No. 25 Becker/Marin (BU) def. Van Elden/Byrnes (OSU) 8-6
No. 3 Neurohr/Lovrak (BU) def. Bohunicky/Diaz (OSU) 9-7
Records:
#2 Baylor - 22-2, 7-0 Big 12
#26 Oklahoma State - 13-3, 2-2 Big 12
