Michigan
ITA National Indoors (Day 3)
Heller and Hung Fall in ITA National Indoors Semifinals
11/6/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Sophomores Brian Hung (Hong Kong, China/Sagemont Virtual School) and Ryan Heller (Northbrook, Ill./Glenbrook North HS) of the University of Michigan men's tennis team had their doubles title hopes come to an end Saturday morning (Nov. 6) at the ITA National Indoor Championships, falling 8-6 to No. 1-ranked and defending NCAA champions KC Corkery and Sam Warburg of Stanford in semifinal action the Varsity Tennis Center. It was U-M's first semifinal appearance in the men's tournament since 1979.
In a tightly contested match, each team was able to hold serve during the first 10 games. However, the No. 2-seeded Cardinal duo finally broke Michigan's serve to take a 6-5 lead. Corkery and Warburg then held serve to come within one game of the match at 7-5. Hung and Heller continued to put forth a valiant effort, holding serve to trim the Stanford lead to one game. The Wolverine pair was actually up a break point at 7-6, but Hung had trouble with a backhand volley at the net and Corkery and Warburg took advantage and eventually pulled out the 8-6 victory.
Hung also lost his opening-round consolation match, falling 6-3, 6-2 to Oklahoma's Marek Velicka.
Michigan will wrap up the fall season at the 2004 Big Ten Conference Singles Championships, hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Nov. 13-15, at Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison, Wis.
Q U O T E S
U-M Head Coach Bruce Berque
On the play of Brian Hung and Ryan Heller ... "I thought our guys played smart. I thought they played reasonably well, they could have executed a little bit better. I thought they competed hard, played smart and stuck with the game plan. It was just a point here or there that could have really made the difference in the match. Execution-wise, I think some skills need to get better. Brian needs a bigger serve, because he struggles to hold each time, even though he has very strong volleys. Ryan has shown a lot of improvement on his net game and his volleys, but still needs significant work to make it a little bit more solid."
U-M Sophomore Brian Hung
On their semifinal match against Corkery and Warburg ... "They're very good, they're the No. 1-ranked team and they won the NCAA doubles championship last year. Bruce (Berque) made sure yesterday and last night that we wouldn't give them too much respect and to come out thinking we could beat them. I think we did that right from the start today. Usually, before this match, like against Duke, we sort of gave them too much respect. Now, we feel that we can beat these teams. During the match, I think we both played pretty good. It wasn't our best tennis. Ryan (Heller) served very well and we kept to the basics, like not doing anything fancy, returning cross-court and trying to isolate Sam Warburg. It worked well, the match just came down to a few points."
On achieving success at the national level ... "It's given us a big boost. After the match, Bruce (Berque) came up and talked to us and told us that this is what we should expect. That we should believe we're able to compete with these guys, not only when we're playing exceptionally well, but even when we play our average game. For the dual season, I think we'll be able to win more doubles matches based on this."
On his success the past couple of weeks ... "I'm pretty satisfied, results-wise. But with my game, I know there are still a lot of areas that need improvement. My serve has to get a lot bigger, both for singles and doubles. I need to improve just about every single stroke in my game if I want to be one of the best players in college. Before, I was thinking about just being able to compete against really good players. But now, my goal is to beat these guys. This past month, the whole team has really been working hard. I think it's great and we have to keep that up."
On having a national tournament on your home courts ... "It's great. After the match, I heard Sam Warburg talking to a couple of their supporters and he mentioned that we had a big crowd. It's tough to play against a big crowd. Just playing and knowing that there are so many guys behind you cheering and supporting you, it's definitely helped our team. I hope that this can keep going, even for the dual season, that we have a lot of supporters come out and cheer for us. It really helps a lot."
Contact: Marc Ressler (734) 763-4423
Players Mentioned
