Oklahoma tennis: OU’s Alex Ghilea advances to quarterfinals in NCAA Championship
By Chip Rouse
The men’s Oklahoma tennis team was eliminated last weekend in its bid to make it out of the opening weekend in the NCAA Tennis Championships, but several Sooners are still going strong in the individual portion of the championship.
OU singles standout Alex Ghilea advanced to the quarterfinals in the NCAA Men’s Championships in Athens, Ga., with a straight-sets victory on Friday over Petros Chrysochos of Wake Forest, the No. 3-seeded singles player in the tournament.
Ghilea, who hails from Romania, will next play the tournament’s No. 8 seed, Tom Fawcett of Stanford, on Saturday, with the winner advancing to the semifinals.
The Sooner captain is just the second Oklahoma men’s player to advance as far as the final eight in the individual singles competition. Oliver Lorin was the last OU player to make it that far in the NCAA Championship, Lorin reached the semifinals in 1987, and became the first player from the Big Eight to advance that far.
Ghilea, a senior, defeated his Wake Forest opponent 7-6, 7-5, the first set decided in a tiebreaker. The win, his 11th consecutive singles-match victory, came a day after Ghilea’s second-round win over Harrison Scott of Texas on Thursday. The Thursday victory earned him All-America status.
Ghilea’s last six singles victories have all come in straight sets. The win over Chrysochos was the 100th of Ghilea’s career at Oklahoma. Only four other Sooners have reached the century mark in career victories.
OU is also alive in the doubles competition, with the duo of senior Andrew Harris and junior Spencer Papa. The Sooner doubles pair defeated the Arkansas team of Mike Redlicki and Jose Salazaar, the country’s sixth-ranked team, in the round of 16 and now moves on to the quarterfinals.
The two teams split the first two sets, with Oklahoma winning the first set 6-2, and Arkansas taking the second 6-3. Harris and Papa prevailed in a 10-point superbreaker to win the match.
The OU doubles pair, who also earned All-America honors, will face UCLA in the quarterfinals. The Bruins are the No. 2 overall seed in the doubles draw.