Dec. 11, 2001
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) and Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia) are listed sixth in doubles in the men’s tennis fall national rankings released today by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Smith, Taborga and sophomore Luis Haddock-Morales (Caguas, Puerto Rico) also earned singles rankings. Preseason national team rankings will debut Jan. 8, 2002.
Smith and Taborga earned the No. 6 ranking after posting a 15-4 fall record, including four wins over top-30 teams. The pair, ranked 34th in the preseason, defeated the nation’s top team in advancing to the semifinals of the Omni Hotels National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships before losing to Johan Brunstron and Eric Cohn of Southern Methodist, fourth in the new rankings, 9-8 (7-5). The Irish team registered an 8-6 victory over UCLA’s Marcin Matkowski and Jean-Julien Rojer in the quarterfinals, snapping the 14-match winning streak of the Bruin team that captured the No. 1 national ranking, as well as the title at the ITA All-American Championships in October.
Smith and Taborga also played well at the All-Americans, winning two qualifying matches to gain entry into the main draw before losing 8-6 to the top-seeded team of Scott Lipsky and David Martin of Stanford in the first round. Smith and Taborga rebounded to beat three top-30 doubles teams on their way to winning the consolation title.
The Irish pair reached the semifinals at the Omni Hotels Region IV Championships before losing 8-6 to the top-seeded team of Mike Calkins and Amer Delic of Illinois, who Smith and Taborga beat 9-7 in the consolation semis at the All-Americans.
The No. 6 ranking marks the highest by a Notre Dame doubles team since the fall rankings in 1997 when Brian Patterson and Jakub Pietrowski were ranked fifth.
In the current rankings, Matkowski and Rojer are the unanimous choice at No. 1 with their lone loss coming to Smith and Taborga. Oliver Maiberger and Ryan Redondo of San Diego State, the national indoor champions, are second, while Lipsky and Martin are third. Brunstrom/Cohn and Auburn’s Andrew Colombo and Tiago Ruffoni round out the top five. Smith and Taborga will get a chance to avenge their loss to the SMU pair when the Mustangs visit Notre Dame on April 6 in what has been designated the “gold match” for the Irish men’s tennis team this spring.
In singles, Haddock-Morales jumped 17 spots to a career-high No. 83 ranking. He won his first nine matches for the second fall in a row and finished with just one loss — a 7-5, 7-6 decision in the round of 16 to top-seeded Amer Delic of Illinois at the regional championships. Haddock-Morales knocked off the 84th-ranked and 14th-seeded Jackie Jenkins of Northwestern 7-6, 6-1 in the quarterfinals. He also clinched Notre Dame’s 5-2 exhibition win over USC by defeating 63rd-ranked Damien Spizzo 6-1, 7-5.
Smith is 88th in singles after a 5-5 fall season featuring losses to four players currently ranked in singles and the other to South Alabama’s Kosta Zinchanka, who is unranked despite reaching the final at the All-American Championships. Smith, who earned the fifth seed at the Region IV Championships, was 38th in the preseason rankings.
Taborga holds the No. 95 singles ranking. He was 7-5 in the fall, highlighted by a run to the quarterfinals at the regional championships and a 7-6, 6-7, 1-0 win over 97th-ranked Prakash Armitraj of USC. His run at the regionals ended with a loss at the hands of Minnesota’s Harsh Mankad, who went on to win the title at the national indoors and is now ranked second nationally. Taborga played a number of close matches in the fall, as he participated in five match tiebreakers (accounting for three of his losses) and six 12-point tiebreakers. Taborga was ranked 76th in the preseason.
K.J. Hippensteel of Stanford is the top-ranked singles player in the country, followed by Mankad, Baylor’s Benjamin Becker, Tulane’s Michael Kogan and Andy Leber of Texas-Arlington. Mankad’s Golden Gophers will host Notre Dame on January 26.
Smith and Taborga have a history of success against the top five players. Last season, the Irish pair combined to go 3-0 against them in singles matches. Taborga defeated Hippensteel 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 at the All-American Championships, marking Hippensteel’s only loss in the tournament over the last three years (he won the title in 1999 and 2001). In dual-match play, Smith notched victories over Mankad (3-6, 7-5, 6-3) and Kogan (6-4, 7-5) last spring.
Notre Dame, which returns its entire starting lineup from last year’s team that was 17-7 and finished 16th, opens its spring season on January 19 with a doubleheader, taking on UC-Irvine at 9 a.m. and Furman at 4 p.m. Both matches will be played at the Eck Tennis Pavilion.