May 26, 1999
ATHENS, Ga. – Notre Dame’s third-seeded and third-ranked junior Ryan Sachire dropped a 6-4, 5-7, 6-0 match to Tennessee’s 42nd-ranked Mark Parsons in the first round of the NCAA singles championship. The Canfield, Ohio, native, ends his junior season with a 37-9 record with a career record of 108-32. By virtue of being a seeded player, Sachire earns All-America honors for the second consecutive year. As a sophomore, he garnered All-America accolades based on all three Intercollegiate Tennis Association criteria: earning a seed in the NCAA singles championships, advancing to at least the third round and finishing among the top 20 players in the ITA rankings.
“In the first game of the third set, he came out and broke me,” said Sachire. “That kind of set the tone. Everyone points at this tournament as the one to do well in. It’s disappointing for me to lose in the first round of the tournament. He played well. He returned my serve real well. I’m used to getting free points on my serve but he used my pace and gave it back to me.”
“I felt really good today,” said Parsons. “I tried to play my game. He plays right into my game. I started going for a lot of returns in the middle of the second set. I realized that wasn’t going to work. I realized I was going to have to get some balls back and make him play.”
Sachire’s third seed marked the highest for an Irish singles player since David DiLucia was named the top seed of the 1992 NCAA singles championship. His opening-round loss marks the first for a top-three seed in the NCAA singles championship since UCLA’s top-seeded Justin Gimelstob and UNLV’s third-seeded Roger Pettersson both lost their first singles matches at the 1996 NCAA championships.