The University of Tulsa’s men’s tennis team made it all the way the championship match of the American Athletic Conference tournament, after a first round bye and exciting wins over East Carolina in the quarterfinals and the Tulane Green Wave in the semifinals.
Unfortunately, their run was ended by the top-seeded, 21st ranked University of South Florida, who defeated Tulsa on Sunday evening at the Case Tennis Center.
Tulsa beat the Bulls two weeks prior by a score of 4–3, but USF, who has won the only two American Athletic Conference men’s tennis conference championships since the formation of the conference, won this match without a doubt, 4–0. They won two out of the three doubles matches to earn the doubles point and then won the first three singles matches to clinch the championship.
TU was leading in some of the remaining singles matches, but those matches proved unimportant after South Florida clinched the title and they didn’t finish any of the last matches. The tournament seeding held true in the final match as the one-seeded USF Bulls beat up on the second seeded Golden Hurricane.
The 27th nationally ranked Or Ram-Harel was in a heated matchup with 22nd ranked Roberto Cid before Oliver Pramming defeated Alejandro Espejo to clinch the match, causing Ram-Harel and Cid to put off their match.
Now comes the National Championship for these two teams. USF will get in with an automatic berth and many believe that the Golden Hurricane, with an overall record of 17–12 and a big win over USC (the top team in the country), will receive a bid as well at the tournament selection show on April 28.
