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Ohio State Men's Tennis (2014/2019/2024 ITA Indoor National Champs, 17 Straight B1G Titles)

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Recap of the critical win at South Bend over #10 Notre Dame to keep the record unblemished from the official site.

Recap of victory
No. 1 Ohio State Rallies at No. 10 Notre Dame to Win 4-2
Buckeyes claim seventh Top 25 win this season

Despite dropping the doubles point and the first singles point, the No. 1 Ohio State men’s tennis team (14-0) rallied to take the next four singles matches to defeat No. 10 Notre Dame, 4-2, Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Ind. With the road victory, the Buckeyes improve to 7-0 against Top 25 teams in 2014.

Senior Peter Kobelt, who was named Most Outstanding Player at the 2014 ITA Indoor Team Championships this past week, defeated No. 37 Greg Andrews 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 in a rematch of the ITA/USTA Midwest Regional Singles Championship to clinch the match for the Buckeyes.

“Greg is not only a great player, but a great friend,” Kobelt said. “Every time we play it’s always close and I was fortunate to come away with the win today. It’s always exciting to clinch match point for your team, especially against a very good Notre Dame team.”

In doubles action, redshirt sophomore Chris Diaz (Columbus, Ohio) and redshirt freshmanRalf Steinbach (Halle, Germany) fell to Ryan Bandy and Eric Scnurrenberger on court No. 3, 8-5. The No. 2 duo of Kobelt and redshirt junior Kevin Metka (Worthington, Ohio) defeated No. 17 Andrews and Alex Lawson, 9-7, on court No. 1 to it up. The point came down to court No. 2, where redshirt junior Hunter Callahan (Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania) and freshman Herkko Pollanen (Helsinki, Finland) fell to No. 46 Josh Hager and Billy Pecor, 8-6.
Down 1-0 heading into singles play, the Buckeyes won the first set on four courts, with three of them going down to tiebreaks. Steinbach fell to No. 121 Bandy 6-3, 6-3 to give Notre Dame a 2-0 lead, but Callahan claimed a 6-4, 6-4 win over Schnurrenberger on court No. 6 to cut that lead in half. Diaz was next to finish, defeating Quentin Monaghan 7-6, 6-4 on court No. 2 to tie the match, 2-2. On court No. 5, Metka claimed a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 decision against Eddy Covalschi to give Ohio State its first lead of the match. The match on court No. 1 had zero breaks of serve with Kobelt rallying to win 6-7, 7-6, 7-6. Pollanen’s match on court No. 3 against Hagar was then suspended at 2-2 in the final set.

The Buckeyes now turn to a Monday match against the No. 58 Indiana in Bloomington for their first conference match of the season. Ohio State has a 44-41 head-to-head record against the Hooisers, including claiming the previous 14 contests and Tucker holds a 14-2 record against Indiana in his coaching career.

On Feb. 28, Ohio State will host No. 23 North Carolina (10-1) at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center. The Buckeyes hold an 8-0 record against the Tar Heels, who are led by No. 15 Brayden Schnur, No. 21 Ronnie Schneider and No. 39 Brett Clark in singles and No. 53 Schneider/Jack Murray and No. 58 Esben Hess-Olesen/Brett Clark in doubles. Ohio State will then host its first Big Ten home match against No. 43 Penn State March 2 at Noon ET. As always, admission is free.
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For those who wondered why ESPN3 streamed the ND vs. Ball State match today instead of the noon match ND vs. tOSU.
Zoo tennis offered this inside information,
Major props to Coach Tucker for not caving into the demands of Espin to alter the format of the match.
Espn required the teams to complete single's matches first and only if there was a 3-3 result would double's be played.
Tucker nixed that and the ESPN crew was left without the #10 vs. #1 showdown and had to televise the junior varsity competition between ND and Ball State.
Read the full Zootennis article HERE

...The reason the Ohio State match was not streamed as part of the College Match Day was Tucker's reluctance to play the mandated format used in streamed matches, with doubles played only if singles are tied at 3-3.

"Let's be honest. If ESPN doesn't want to do a match with regular scoring like they just saw, I can't help them," Tucker said. "That was a big-time match. They were crazy they didn't have their cameras out there getting that match. That was as good as it gets. If I would have wanted to play College Match Day, with different experiments with formats, I would have asked to have one at our home. I want to play regular rules, put my guys in the best position to win, and that's what I was doing."

"They opted not to play the College Match Day format," said Sachire. "We bid on it with Ohio State being the intended College Match Day match, and Ohio State refused to play under that format. That was their choice and their right to not play that format, so we're happy that the USTA was nice enough to allow us to play Ball State."
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I know that some of you have inquired about why they decided to change the scoring for matches this year with regard to the doubles only being to 6 games and there being no ads in the singles matches. Probably the major reason for this change is because in big tournaments one or two matches could go extremely long which throws off the timing of quite a few of the other matches and a tournament officials are left scrambling which they really do not like. This is the best explanation I have heard.
 
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