April 1, 2010
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Coach Alan Dils has been stressing to his Lobos in recent days the importance of playing their doubles matches with more fire and determination.
Thursday afternoon against visiting Utah, New Mexico was intent on showing their coach they’d gotten the message.
The Lobos won the first two of three doubles matches, helping catapult New Mexico past the Utes, 5-2, at the Linda Estes Tennis Center.
The Lobos’ Carl Ho, Jadon Phillips, Phil Anderson and Conor Berg each won their singles matches, with Berg’s 6-4, 7-6 decision over Stephen Jacobs in the No. 6 match that gave New Mexico its fourth and decisive team point. Berg put Jacobs away with a second-set 8-6 tie-breaker to put Jacob, and the Utes, away.
New Mexico is now 6-7 on the season, 1-0 in conference, while Utah drops to 5-11, 0-1.
“It’s great to start off conference with a win,” coach Alan Dils said. “Utah is traditionally a good team. I don’t think we played out best tennis, by any stretch of the imagination. But, we found a way to scrap and get points when we needed to.”
New Mexico’s No. 1 team of Phillips and Anderson nipped the duo of Utes’ Phillip Eilers and Alex Golding, 9-8, winning the tiebreaker 7-5. The Lobos’ No. 2 team of Berg and Ben Dunbar also won close, 9-7, over Utah’s Timmy Allin and Jason Smits. The Utes’ Benito Suriano and Stephen Jacobs won the No. 3 match over Ho and Joe Wood.
“We played really good doubles,” Dils said. “That was the best doubles we’ve played all year. Singles – I thought we played a little bit tight. We could do a better job in singles. In that respect, I’m really happy. I don’t think we played our best tennis, but we found a way to win.”
We all just had so much energy,” Berg said. “That’s what Alan’s been emphasizing. Today we just tried to stay on top of them and have a lot of energy. We did that well today. I think that’s why we won the doubles point.”
In singles play, Berg’s singles drama had been set up by wins from Ho and Anderson. Ho had already gotten past Smits 7-6, 6-2 in the No. 2 match and Anderson had beat Allin in three sets, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3. The Lobos had three points as Berg and Jacobs brought their match to a close.
“Once we got the doubles point and got that lead, we could play a lot looser,” Ho said. “We might have been a little too tight out there with this being our first conference match. But, we managed to fight hard and scrap out there, so it was a good win.”
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Lobos, as they host No. 32-ranked Brigham Young Saturday. Doubles matches start at 1 p.m. MT. Weather permitting, the match will be played outside as scheduled.