Kentucky men’s tennis team’s NCAA Tournament run ends in quarterfinals

The Kentucky men’s tennis team had been the kings of comebacks during this NCAA Tournament, having dropped the doubles point the last two rounds and rallied to 4-3 victories.

But this time around, against defending national champion Virginia in the NCAA quarterfinals in Orlando, Florida, the comeback didn’t materialize.

The fourth-seeded Wildcats (27-5) had won the doubles point Thursday evening before rain and lightning pushed their match against the the fifth-seeded Cavaliers (28-4) to a Friday morning completion.

Virginia, which defeated Kentucky in last year’s NCAA finals, put the pressure on with three straight singles victories when the match resumed. Kentucky managed to push all three of the remaining contests to a third set and got a victory from Alafia Ayeni to trim the deficit to 3-2.

However, the Cavaliers’ Mans Dahlberg, who had dropped the first set against UK’s Charlelie Cosnet, completed a comeback of his own to win a third-set tiebreaker 7-3 and give his team a 4-2 victory and a spot against Texas in the NCAA semifinals.

“We had some chances in the last 10 minutes,” UK head coach Cedric Kauffmann said. “We came up a little bit short, but it was not for a lack of effort or a lack of courage. The Cats are not going anywhere. We will get back to work and hopefully get back to this position.”

There is still more tennis to be played this season for some of the Wildcats.

Liam Draxl and Ayeni are both at-large selections for the NCAA men’s singles tournament, while Ayeni and Taha Baadi received an invitation to the doubles event. Joshua Lapadat was listed as the initial first alternate for men’s singles.

The NCAA singles and doubles tournaments are scheduled for May 22-27 in Orlando.

This story was originally published May 19, 2023 at 1:48 PM.