STANFORD, CALIF. — One word. History. That’s how USC head coach Peter Smith summed up his program’s post-season run moments after the Trojans put the finishing touches on a rare three-peat, edging top-seeded Virginia 4-3 in the final of the NCAA Division I Men’s Championships on Tuesday.
Here’s another word Smith might get comfortable with: dynasty.
“I wouldn’t use that word yet,” said Smith, now in his ninth year at the helm. “But I just felt like for some reason in L.A., winning three straight is pretty tough. The Lakers couldn’t do it this year, we couldn’t do it in football…How many teams have won three in a row?”
In men’s collegiate tennis, only two — USC and Stanford.
It initially looked as though it would be a one-sided affair. The Trojans were downright dominant in sweeping the doubles. Steve Johnson and partner Emilio Gomez were the first to close out their match at No. 2, topping Jarmere Jenkins/Julen Uriguen 8-2. Teammates Daniel Nguyen and Ray Sarmiento weren’t far behind, defeating Alex Domijan/Sanam Singh 8-4 at No. 3 to clinch the all-important doubles point.
Gomez — the son of 1990 Roland Garros titlist Andres Gomez — was off the court in a hurry once the singles action got underway. The Ecuadorian took the first eight games of his match against Virginia’s Justin Shane at No. 5, and rolled to a quick 6-0, 6-3 win. But even though the Trojans were 19-1 on the season after pocketing the doubles point, the day was far from over. Four of the remaining five matches went three sets, the lone exception being Johnson’s straight-sets 7-6, 6-3 win over Michael Shabaz at No. 1. The Cavs finally got on the scoreboard when Jaak Poldma, fighting leg cramps and UVA’s Domijan, couldn’t maintain an early edge and fell 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 at No. 2. Julen Uriguen soon closed USC’s advantage to 3-2 with a clutch 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Peter Lucassen at the bottom of the lineup, and Jenkins pulled things even at 3-3 with a dramatic 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 decision over Sarmiento at No. 4. Suddenly, all eyes were on Court No. 3 and the Nguyen-Singh head-to-head.
“I was hoping we would run away with it and have no excitement,” said Smith.
Wishful thinking.
Nguyen appeared to be in control early, however, Singh battled back to blank him in the second set. Nguyen let a match point slip away ahead 5-2 in the telltale third set, but he would have a few more chances. With Singh serving to stay in the match trailing 5-4, 0-15, Nguyen sprinted along the baseline and dove for a highlight-reel forehand that somehow managed to clear the net.
“It went in luckily,” said Nguyen. “It was an unreal shot.”
“We want that on ESPN tonight,” added Smith.
Four points later, Nguyen put away a backhand volley at the net to break Singh and clinch the match 7-5, 0-6, 6-4. USC had won its record 19th NCAA team title, and Nguyen was mobbed by his teammates and coaches. Smith circled in front of the stands to high five the boisterous USC supporters, many of whom chanted “THREE-PEAT!, THREE-PEAT!”
“It’s definitely a dream come true,” said Nguyen, who also clinched USC’s 4-2 win over Tennessee in last year’s NCAA final. But this year was different. Against the Vols, Nguyen had no idea the title was on his racket. This year, the situation was obvious. There wasn’t another ball being struck anywhere in Stanford’s Taube Family Tennis Stadium. All eyes were on him.
“I just pushed myself mentally and physically,” he said. “I believed in my team and myself. It was just an amazing moment out there. It was unbelievably loud. It was very tough to focus, but I really just seized the moment and took advantage of that situation.”
“I had a ton of chances in that third set,” said a dejected Singh, who was in the same situation just three days earlier when he proved the clinching point against host Stanford. “I just kept telling myself, ‘Hang in there, hang in there.’ I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Somebody had to lose a tough match,” said UVA skipper Brian Boland, who called Singh the most unselfish player he’s ever coached. “That’s just part of sports. It’s a team event. That’s why you can’t put it all on the shoulders of one guy.”
It marked the fourth straight year that UVA came into the NCAA Championships as the No. 1 seed, but the first ACC team to reach the final left empty handed once again.
As far as where the 2011 title ranks with 2009 and 2010, Smith said, “The first was like…watching your first child being born. You see it happening but you’re just not really aware of it. Last year, the momentum got going and we just knew we were going to win. We just had this feeling. This year it was literally an explosion.”
For Johnson, a member of all three of USC’s title-winning teams, the victory stands out among the rest. After occupying the ITA’s No. 1 ranking for much of the season, he shouldered much of the pressure and there’s no question that he delivered.
“It’s just so surreal,” he said. “The first year, it was kind of tough to put into words because I don’t think anyone expected us to win. That year, we had that unbelievable leadership from [former Trojan] Robert Farah. I felt like this year was kind of my team. I really wanted to prove that we could come back and show how good we were.”
USC closes the season at 27-2, handing 34-1 Virginia its only loss of the season.
REVENGE: STANFORD’S STREAK SNAPPED AS FLORIDA CLAIMS WOMEN’S CROWN
These days, talk of tennis and streaks usually centers on Serb Novak Djokovic and his incredible, record-threatening 38-0 run. But in and around Palo Alto, the only streak anyone had been talking about was the home-court dominance of Lele Forood‘s Stanford Cardinal, which hadn’t been beaten on the Taube Family Stadium courts since 1999. That’s 184 straight matches without a loss (including an unblemished 37-0 mark in NCAA play) — the longest active home winning streak of ANY kind in D1 sports.
It’s a streak that traced back the Clinton Administration, The Matrix, the introduction of the Euro. But as Forood has long known, at some point, all streaks come to an end.
“It’s been going on a long time,” said Forood, whose Cardinal had its dozen years of home-court perfection (and it’s 28-0 record of 2011) halted by Florida 4-3 on Tuesday night in one of the most intense finals in the history of the NCAA Division I Women’s Championships. “The streak doesn’t mean a lot to us. It’s interesting, but it’s not a motivating thing. It’s kind of fun, but it’s trivia.”
The Gators (31-1) captured their first national title since 2003 and avenged last year’s 4-3 national championship loss to Stanford in Athens, Ga.
“I don’t know how it looked on TV or up in the stands, but let me tell you what it felt like from my point of view: it took about 10 years off of my life,” said Florida head coach Roland Thornqvist of the nail-biting competition, which came down to a third-set tiebreaker between Stanford’s Mallory Burdette and Florida’s Lauren Embree on Court 2. “But it was phenomenal. This is what college tennis is all about.”
Florida took the doubles point for a 1-0 advantage after Embree/Sofie Oyen defeated Nicole Gibbs/Veronica Li 8-3 and Caroline Hitimana/Joanna Mather downed Carolyn McVeigh/Stacey Tan 8-3. But Stanford roared back in singles with wins by Hilary Barte at No. 1 (def. Allie Will 6-2, 6-4), Gibbs at No. 3 (def. Oyen 6-4, 7-5) and Tan at No. 4 (def. Mather 3-6, 6-2, 6-4). But up 3-1 and needing only one more point to close out its 17th NCAA team title, Stanford — which was playing without the injured Kristie Ahn (ankle) — couldn’t take that last step. Alex Cercone overcame a limping Li 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 at No. 5 and Olivia Janowicz upended McVeigh 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-1 at No. 6 to deadlock the match at 3-3.
“It’s hard to lose an impact player like [Kristie], but we felt comfortable with the lineup we were putting out today,” said Forood, who called it “the most electric atmosphere” she’s ever experienced at a college match. “There was no question that she wasn’t going to take up a space and just walk on a court just to take space up. We were going to play with six healthy players.”
In the decisive contest on Court 2, Burdette turned a 5-1 deficit into a 7-5 first-set win against Embree in an up-and-down match that had fans on the edge of their seats. Embree bounced back to take the second set 6-3. Then it was Burdette’s turn to surge ahead 4-0 in the final set. However, Embree responded by claiming five straight games and the match was soon headed into a tiebreaker, with the entire season on the line. The pair was knotted at 2-2, 4-4 and 6-6 before Embree prevailed 5-7, 6-3, 7-6(6), silencing the once-raucous Stanford crowd.
Things were a whole lot different a year ago. That’s when Burdette reeled off three straight games to score the clincher in Stanford’s dramatic 4-3 upset of Florida in the NCAA finale. Burdette was mobbed by her teammates, which included her sister, Lindsay, who was playing the final match of her career.
“It’s a one or two-point difference, but the feeling on this side is like a different world,” said Thornqvist. “I’m sure Mallory feels terrible now. That’s how we felt last year.”
“Obviously, it’s not as fun being on this side,” said a tearful Burdette. “I had my game plan when I went out there today and I executed it pretty well for most of the match and it came down to two points.”
“Mallory just started playing better and better as the match went on,” said Embree, who overcame a pair of wrist surgeries last year. “In the second set, I knew that if I hung in there I could get a break, and that’s what happened. In the third, I got off to a really slow start. But I just wanted to stay out there and keep fighting for my team.”
Both squads had taken turns occupying the top spot in the ITA national rankings this year, with Florida entering the postseason ranked No. 1 but seeded No. 2 in the draw, while Stanford was ranked No. 2 yet owned the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed.
