Men's Tennis Slides Past Elon

Williamsburg, Va. (February 2, 2009) –Earning the doubles point made the difference for the Cougars in Saturday’s 4-3 win over Elon at the Tribe National Indoor Invite. With the win, BYU improves to 4-2 while the Phoenix is still looking for its first win of the season.

"It was a tough match, but it felt great to come home with another win under our belt," BYU coach Brad Pearce said.

After falling to No. 63 William & Mary Friday, the Cougars bounced back to defeat Elon in the consolation round of the tournament. Doubles play gave the Cougars the edge following wins by Cassidy Mears and Daniel Hwang on court two and Georgy Batrakov and Thomas Shubert on court three.

BYU played with new pairs and in different positions during the doubles matches Saturday. Sophomore Thomas Shubert usually plays at the No. 1 position with Mears, but was recovering from a back injury. Instead, he played with sophomore Georgy Batrakov on court three, and the pair won in a close 8-6 match.

"We had not been winning the doubles point," Pearce said. "We wanted to make some adjustments, and they seemed to be effective during this match."

In singles, freshmen victories helped the Cougars earn the win. Roman Warias and Batrakov both won their respective matches to add to BYU’s point total. A win by Urbina at the No. 1 position secured the last point the team needed to defeat Elon.

"Evan has been playing great tennis, beating good players week in and week out," Pearce said. "He has had great energy on and off the court."

The Cougars head back to California next weekend to take on No. 11 Stanford Friday and Pacific Saturday.

No. 65 BYU- 4

Elon- 3

Doubles

No. 1 - #49 Gooch/Nemec(Elon) def. Urbina/Young (BYU)- 8-4

No. 2 - Mears/Hwang (BYU) def. Helpingstine/Podlewski (Elon)- 8-4

No. 3 - Shubert/Batrakov (BYU) def. Rojas/Stauffer MacDowell (Elon)- 8-6

Singles

No. 1 - Evan Urbina (BYU) def. Damon Gooch (Elon) - 6-2, 7-6 (16-14)

No. 2 - #120 Oscar Podlewski (Elon) def. Thomas Shubert (BYU) - 6-0, 6-0

No. 3 - Roman Warias (BYU) def. Chase Helpingstine (Elon) - 7-6 (7-3), 6-4

No. 4 - Philip Nemec (Elon) def. Cassidy Mears (BYU) 7-6 (7-3), 6-1

No. 5 - Georgy Batrakov (BYU) def. C Stauffer MacDowell (Elon) - 6-4, 6-4

No. 6 - Alberto Rojas (Elon) def. Daniel Hwang (BYU) - 6-2, 6-2