The No. 44 men’s tennis team finished its best season in NCAA Division I history after a 4-3 loss to No. 20 Oklahoma State on Saturday.
This was Denver’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament since turning Division I in 1998.
The Pioneers finished their season 17-9.
“I am very proud of the way they handled such a grueling season, especially with 17 road matches,” said Head Coach Danny Westerman. “It would have been easy to blame the schedule for some losses, but we took it as an opportunity to play the best.”
Oklahoma State clinched the doubles point and three singles matches beginning with No. 1 and No. 2 doubles. Oklahoma State’s Dmytro Petrov and Ivan Puchkarov beat freshman Andrew Landwerien and sophomore David Simon 8-3 at No. 2 doubles. The Cowboys’ No. 3-ranked Nathan Byrnes and Oleksandr Nedovyesov claimed the point with an 8-5 win over No. 12-ranked doubles team of seniors Adam Holmstrom and Niklas Persson.
“It was a very close dual match, and it could have gone either way. Unfortunately we did come up a little short,” said Holmstrom.
“I think we came out a bit tentative in doubles. We were down 4-1 on all three courts to start and against a good team it is hard to come back from such a deficit,” Westerman said. “No. 1 and No. 3 did a nice job getting back, but we came up a bit short. It is easy to look back, but that point may have been the difference.”
In singles play, Oklahoma State gained a 2-0 lead as Anton Bobytskyi defeated Landwerien 6-3, 6-1 in No. 5 singles. Senior Kalle Rosen made it 2-1 with a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 6 singles. OSU added another point as Nedovyesov had a narrow 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-3) victory against Holmstrom at No. 1 singles.
“He (Nedovyesov) is a good player and it got to a tiebreak in both sets and I got a bad start in both of them,” Holmstrom said. “But it is only a couple of points, and it could easily have gone the other way around to my advantage.”
Persson cut the Cowboy’s lead to 3-2 after winning a three-set 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 at No. 2 singles.
“Niklas Persson may have had his best win of his career that day. He beat a player who last year was No. 3 in the county in singles,” Westerman said. “His win gave us an opportunity to close out the dual.”
Sophomore David Simson then tied the score at No. 3 singles with a 6-3, 7-6 win, but OSU’s Byrnes took the win after defeating junior Benny Althaus 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, in a three-set at No. 4.
Holmstrom and Persson will compete in the NCAA championship May 21-26 in Tulsa, Okla. Holmstrom will compete in both singles as well as doubles with Persson.
“We know that we can beat anyone as we have proven through our four years here,” Holmstrom said. “On the other hand is every doubles team who made it to the NCAA very good, so one can only try to do our best and hope that’s enough.”
