April 1, 1999

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 26th-ranked Notre Dame men’s tennis team dropped a 5-2 match to second-ranked Illinois on Saturday at the Courtney Tennis Center. The Irish return to action on Mon., April 5, when they travel to Purdue for a 2:00 p.m. match before playing Ball State at home on Wed., April 7, at 3:00 p.m.

In light of loss Brian Patterson wins ninth straight singles match while Ryan Sachire remained ranked in singles and re-entered doubles rankings.

THIS WEEK FOR THE IRISH: Notre Dame travels to West Lafayette, Ind., for a 2:00 p.m. at 47th-ranked Purdue on Mon., April 5. The Boilermakers currently have an 11-2 record before a match with Minnesota on Sunday. Purdue senior Cris James is ranked 46th in singles, while sophomore Jason Marshall is 61st. Notre Dame leads the all-time series with Purdue 38-8 and has won the last eight meetings.

The Irish return home for a 3:00 p.m. against Ball State on Wed., April 7. The Cardinals currently have a 6-7 record and will play Miami and Western Michigan before traveling to Notre Dame. The Irish have beaten the Cardinals 10 consecutive times and lead the all-time series 25-5.

PATTERSON WINS NINE STRAIGHT: Senior captain Brian Patterson (Falmouth, Maine) has not lost a singles match since dropping a 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 decision to Duke’s Pedro Escudero on Feb. 13. Since that lost, Patterson, whose three singles matches at the Blue-Gray Invitational were abandoned with the team matches already clinched, has won nine consecutive matches to improve his record to 15-6 and 13-2 in 1999 dual matches. His only other dual match loss in 1999 came in three sets at the hands Texas’ Brandon Hawk, currently ranked 48th. Patterson’s career singles record stands at 80-38 in his three-plus years at Notre Dame. A two-time NCAA doubles participant, Patterson’s doubles record stands at 79-42. His singles record in dual matches is 61-29 for his career with a 33-7 mark since the beginning of his junior year.

IRISH FALL TO ILLINOIS: The Irish lost three three-set singles matches as second-ranked Illinois beat the Irish 5-2 on Saturday at the Courtney Tennis Center. Leading 2-1 in the match, the Illini used three-set wins at Nos. 3 and 5 singles for the win. Illinois won the doubles point to start the match as Jeff Laski and Jamal Parker beat Trent Miller (San Diego, Calif.) and Javier Taborga (LaPaz, Bolivia) 8-5 at No. 2 doubles. Illinois’ seventh-ranked team of Cary Franklin and Oliver Freelove beat 43rd-ranked Brian Patterson and Ryan Sachire (Canfield, Ohio) 8-5 at No. 1 doubles to clinch the point. Notre Dame’s Matt Daly (Wellesley, Mass.) and Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) beat Matthew Snyder and Jakub Teply 9-8 at No. 3 doubles.

Patterson knotted the match at 1-1 as he won his ninth consecutive singles match with a 6-3, 6-4 win over 55th-ranked Franklin at No. 2 singles. Teply wasted five match points before finally beating Irish freshman Andrew Laflin (Tampa, Fla.) 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) at No. 4 singles. Laflin saved two match points at 4-5 in the second set and saved three more as he rallied from 2-6 to 5-6 in the tiebreaker.

The teams split a pair of seesaw matches at Nos. 5 and 6 singles for a 3-2 Illinois lead. In a battle of freshmen, Illinois’ Mike Kosta held on for a 6-0, 1-6, 7-5 win over Smith at No. 5 singles after losing a 4-1 lead in the third set. Irish senior Andy Warford (Bismarck, N.D.) also survived a second-set loss in his 6-1, 0-6, 6-4 win over Arnaud Lantin at No. 6 singles. The 88th-ranked Laski then clinched the match with a 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 win over Daly at No. 3 singles. Eighth-ranked Freelove won the battle of top 10 singles players in the final match with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 win over second-ranked Sachire after trailing 2-4 in the third set.

DOUBLES ENTERS RANKINGS: Notre Dame’s No. 1 doubles team of Brian Patterson and Ryan Sachire have reentered the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association national rankings, which were released on March 22. The pair has compiled a 10-7 record in the spring and a 12-9 overall record with two wins against ranked teams. Patterson and Sachire were ranked 28th in the preseason but played in just one tournament in the fall and fell out of the rankings.

SACHIRE REACHES CENTURY MARK: Ryan Sachire’s 6-3, 6-3 win over Miami’s Jamin Thompson marked his 100th career singles win at Notre Dame, becoming the first Irish junior to reach 100 wins since former All-American and No. 1 nationally-ranked collegiate singles player David DiLucia reached the century mark as a junior in 1991. DiLucia ended his career by leading the Irish to the 1992 NCAA championship title match with a 146-33 career record. Sachire currently has a 102-30 (.773) record and a 31-7 record in 1999.

BAYLISS REACHES 500TH WIN: Irish head coach Bob Bayliss became the 11th active men’s tennis coach to record his 500th career win with a 7-0 win over Northwestern on Feb. 20. Bayliss is in his 12th year as head coach of the Irish, compiling a 225-102 (.688) record at Notre Dame and a career mark of 507-196 (.721), the sixth-best winning percentage among active men’s coaches. He has guided the Irish to NCAA championship appearances in each of the last eight years, including an NCAA second-place finish in 1992. The Richmond, Va., native, and 1966 graduate of Richmond has been named ITA national coach of the year in 1992 and ITA regional coach of the year three times. The five-time conference coach of year has coached his players to 12 All-America honors in his 11 years at Notre Dame, with junior Ryan Sachire his latest All-American.

SACHIRE SOLID AT NO. 2 RANKING: Ryan Sachire remains second in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, released by the ITA on March 22. Sachire’s No. 2 spot marks the highest ranking for an Irish singles player since David DiLucia finished the 1992 regular season as the No. 1 player in the country. Sachire, who is 31-7 in singles and 17-3 in dual matches in ’99, entered the 1998 fall season ranked No. 8 in the preseason but vaulted five spots to three based on his fall performance. His jump from three to two came in the Feb. 16 ranking after winning the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships singles consolation. Since taking over the No. 2 spot behind Harvard’s James Blake, Sachire has compiled a 10-2 record.

LAFLIN SOLID AT NO. 4 SINGLES: Irish freshman Andrew Laflin compiled a 5-2 record at No. 4 singles after winning five matches at No. 6 singles and one match at No. 5 singles to open the dual-match season. He began 1999 11-0 before dropping his first match of 1999 against Texas A&M’s Keith From. The lefty won his first seven matches without dropping a set before winning in three sets against both Boise State and Ohio State. Laflin played at No. 5 singles in his first match of 1999 before winning five matches at No. 6 singles. His overall singles record stands at 18-7, and he boasts a 15-0 record when he wins the first set. Of his 11 wins in 1999, three have clinched match wins for the Irish.

DALY ON A ROLL: Sophomore Matt Daly has won seven out of his last 10 matches after starting off 1999 with a 2-3 record. Of the 10 matches Daly has won in ’99, four have clinched wins for the Irish. He entered the spring dual match season after compiling an 11-2 record in the fall, with one of the losses coming to teammate Casey Smith. His overall record of 21-9 includes an 18-0 mark in matches when he wins the first set.

SACHIRE CONTINUES DUAL MATCH SUCCESS: Ryan Sachire entered his junior year with a 37-10 dual match record in his first two years and has improved that mark to 54-13 with his 17-3 mark this year. Three of his wins have come against top 10 players. His overall singles record is 31-7 this year with 17 wins against ranked opponents.

SACHIRE WINS ROLEX CONSOLATION SINGLES: Ryan Sachire rallied from a first-round loss to win the singles consolation draw at the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, the third leg of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association collegiate grand slam. After Virginia Tech’s 23rd-ranked Adam Marchetti bounced the third-seeded Sachire 7-5, 6-3 in the first round, Sachire won four straight matches to win the consolation singles.

Sachire’s latest grand slam success comes after he advanced to the final of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championships Oct. 15-18, 1998, in Austin, Texas, the second of the four ITA collegiate grand slam events, before losing 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) to Harvard’s James Blake, currently the No. 1 player in the country. Sachire became just the second Notre Dame men’s tennis player to reach the final of a collegiate grand slam, joining David DiLucia in 1992.

IRISH FACE TOUGH SLATE: The Irish have played 12 matches against ranked teams and two matches against top 10 teams already in 1999. In all, Notre Dame will play at least 15 matches against ranked teams in 1999, including seven ranked teams at home.

Ryan Sachire, currently ranked second in the country in singles, recently moved into fifth place in singles wins among Notre Dame players under current Irish head coach Bob Bayliss (1988-99). Here is where Sachire compares to other Bayliss-coached Notre Dame players:

Irish Singles Wins

Name               Years    Singles1. David DiLucia   1989-92  146-332. Andy Zurcher    1990-94  128-603. Chuck Coleman   1990-93  123-584. Mark Schmidt    1990-93  113-44

Intercollegiate Tennis Rankings
Team Release: March 23, 1999

This    Last     School                 Avg.Week    Rank1.       1.      UCLA                   53.212.       2.      Illinois *             49.613.       7.      Baylor                 36.64.       3.      Stanford               31.575.       10.     SMU                    31.276.       8.      Texas *                31.257.       4.      Duke *                 30.488.       T17.    Florida                27.59.       28.     Alabama                25.2210.      T13.    USC                    25.1911.      11.     South Carolina         24.7812.      T13.    Arizona State          24.7413.      5.      Georgia                23.7014.      6.      Mississippi            23.4515.      9.      Washington             22.8816.      16.     Harvard                22.2217.      12.     Pepperdine             22.0818.      T17.    Mississippi State      20.7619.      34.     TCU                    20.4720.      15.     Tennessee              18.1321.      19.     Texas A&M *            18.0022.      29.     Southwestern Louisiana 15.7423.      T22.    VCU                    14.4424.      53.     North Carolina State   13.0525.      41.     South Florida          12.2226.      T26.    Notre Dame             11.90* indicates Notre Dame opponents

Other Notre Dame opponents

29.      30.     Tulane                 11.6132.      21.     Kentucky               11.1336.      T24.    Minnesota               9.8939.      T43.    Michigan                8.7744.      T43.    Miami (Fla.)            7.3247.      35.     Purdue                  6.2349.      63.     William & Mary          6.0552.      33.     Northwestern            5.6754.      T55.    Boise State             5.2258.      T75.    Indiana                 4.56T75.     58      North Carolina          3.25

Singles Release: March 23, 1999

This    Last    Name                 SchoolWeek    Rank1.       1.  James Blake             Harvard2.       2.  Ryan Sachire            Notre Dame3.       5.  Ryan Wolters            Stanford4.       3.  Robert Kendrick         Washington5.       9.  Jeff Morrison           Florida6.       7.  Esteban Carril          TCU7.       6.  Francisco Rodriguez     Alabama8.      11.  Jean-Noel Grinda        UCLA9.       4.  Oliver Freelove         Illinois10.     12.  Peter Handoyo           Tennessee11.      8.  Hirsham Hemeda          Georgia12.     10.  Ignacio Hirigoyen       SMU13.     16.  Aaron Marchetti         Virginia Tech14.     14.  Daniel Andersson        VCU15.     13.  KJ Hippensteel          Stanford16.     17.  Guillaume Legat         South Carolina17.     48.  Robert Samuelsson       TulaneT18.    24.  Pawel Gajdzik           BaylorT18.    21.  Brian Vahaly            Virignia20.     27.  Jack Brasington         Texas         5.  Ryan Sachire 1996-99 102-30