Oct. 9, 2015
Tulsa, Okla. — After hard singles and doubles losses Thursday in the main draw of the 2015 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men’s All-American Championships the Commodores were back in action Friday for consolation competition.
Sophomore Daniel Valent started the day off for the Dores, as the Zurich, Switzerland native faced a tough opponent in Virginia Tech senior, No. 28 Andreas Bjerrehus. After making a few errors yesterday, Valent made a few adjustments to his game, especially in Friday’s third set to eliminate Bjerrehus in a competitive, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
“I think Danny played a much better match than he did yesterday,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “He obviously lost the first set and then came back and won the second. He was down 3-0 in the third at break point to go down 4-0, but held and won five of the next six games… so he really played extremely well at the end of the match. You know it still wasn’t what I consider to be the best that he can do, but he played a really good player and found a way to win. It certainly was an improvement from yesterday, so we just have to stay at it.”
Following Valent’s singles success he rejoined Rhys Johnson in the second round of consolation doubles, facing Cal’s No. 25 Andre Goransson and Florian Lakat.
While the 21st-ranked Commodores gave great effort by putting up a huge fight in the fist set, Johnson/Valent fell in a tight 7-5 loss. Using their first set victory to their advantage, the Bears powered through the second set taking the match and advancing in back draw play, 7-5, 6-2.
“We played a lot better than we did yesterday, the first set was close. We struggled to hold serve. Yesterday we retuned woefully and today we retuned a lot better and actually broke them twice in the first set, but just got broken three times. So it was a step in the right direction. It once again wasn’t near where we want to be, but I thought at times we played extremely well, but just weren’t consistent enough.”
On Saturday morning Valent returns to the court in the consolation round of 16, playing Alabama’s No. 96 Korey Lovett at 10:00 am.
