No University of Kentucky tennis player has ever won the NCAA Division I men’s singles national championship.
The tournament is one of the NCAA’s most-challenging endurance tests, requiring the champion to win six matches in six consecutive days. You’d better be fit, you’d better be skilled and you’d better have a short memory to get the job done.
Kentucky’s Liam Draxl displayed all of those qualities through four matches this week but could not get past his fifth.
Draxl, the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 seed, succumbed to No. 6 Sam Riffice of Florida, 6-7, 6-2, 1-6 in Thursday’s national semifinals at Orlando, Fla.
Draxl was attempting to join Carlos Drada (2000), Jesse Witten (2002) and Eric Quigley (2012) as the only Wildcats in program history to advance to the NCAA finals.
“I’m pumped to be through to the Final Four,” Draxl said after Wednesday’s win pushed him to the semifinals. “I’ve been having so much fun this week playing these great matches against great opponents. I’ve been really enjoying myself, so I’m just soaking it all in and fighting as hard as I can every match.”
Draxl played from behind throughout the NCAA Tournament, and on Thursday his slow starts finally got the best of him against a player who has put together a magical week. On Wednesday, Riffice took out No. 4 seed Val Vacherot of Texas A&M in straight sets. On Thursday, he knocked off No. 1.
Draxl was forced to go to three sets for the fourth time in the tournament. Also for the fourth time, Draxl rallied after losing the first set. This time, though, the UK sophomore could not make it all the way back.
Riffice got things rolling by winning the first-set tiebreaker 5-3. Draxl looked dominant in winning the second set 6-2 but quickly fell behind in the third set, dropping the first three games and never recovering.
Riffice moves on to the championship match where he’ll face another Southeastern Conference foe in No. 2 seed Daniel Rodrigues of South Carolina.
Rodrigues beat unseeded Adrian Boitan of Baylor, 7-6, 3-1, to advance on Thursday. Boitan was unable to complete the match.
To get to the semifinals, Draxl beat unseeded John McNally of Ohio State on Sunday, unseeded Axel Nefve of Notre Dame on Monday, 9-16 seed Adam Walton of Tennessee on Tuesday and No. 8 Gabriel Decamps of UCF on Wednesday. On Thursday came Riffice (30-7) who helped lead the Gators to the team national championship on Sunday in Orlando and now will play for an individual championship as well.
Draxl, from Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, concludes his season with a 26-3 singles record.
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