March 2, 1999

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The 24th-ranked Notre Dame men’s tennis team, in the midst of a four-match winning streak, will play its seventh match in 12 days on Wed., March 3, at Michigan State.

THIS WEEK FOR THE IRISH: The Irish travel to East Lansing, Mich., to take on Michigan State on Wed., March 3 in a 3:00 p.m. match that marks the Spartans first home match of the year. Michigan State was beaten by Florida 6-1 in its last match and currently has a 2-3 record. The 54th-ranked Spartans are led by juniors Ken Kigongo and Francisco Trinidad who team up to form the 13th-ranked doubles team in the country. The Irish lead the all-time series with Michigan State 35-31 and have won the last nine meetings since a 5-4 road loss in 1988.

SACHIRE INCHES UP RANKINGS: Ryan Sachire (Canfield, Ohio) is ranked second in the latest rankings, released by the ITA on Feb. 16., up from the No. 3 ranking held after the fall rankings on Dec. 8. 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 27-5 in singles and 13-1 in dual matches, entered the 1998 fall season ranked No. 8 in the preseason but vaulted five spots based on his fall performance. His latest climb comes after winning the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships singles consolation and compiling a 15-2 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 218-99 (.688) record at Notre Dame and a career mark of 500-193 (.722), 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.

IRISH WIN FOUR STRAIGHT: Second-ranked Ryan Sachire (Canfield, Ohio) completed the sweep for the Irish in their 7-0 win over Iowa on Wed., Feb. 26, at the Eck Tennis Pavilion, as he hung on for a 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 7-6 (7-1) win over Tyler Cleveland at No. 1 singles in the final match. Notre Dame claimed the doubles point with wins at Nos. 1 and 3 doubles. The freshman team of Javier Taborga (LaPaz, Bolivia) and Aaron Talarico (Laguna Beach, Calif.), playing in their first dual match in doubles, beat Ben Bamsey and J.R. Chidley 8-3 at No. 3 doubles. Sachire and Brian Patterson (Falmouth, Maine) beat Jason Dunn and Ulf Jentler 8-4 at No. 1 doubles to clinch the point. The Irish opened singles with three straight-set wins to clinch the match 4-0. Patterson beat Thomas Buetikofer 6-2, 6-2 at No. 2 singles just before Casey Smith (Leawood, Kan.) downed Jentler 6-1, 6-3 at No. 5 singles. Andrew Laflin (Tampa, Fla.), who had not lost a set in one match at No. 5 singles and five matches at No. 6 singles in 1999, moved up to No. 4 singles and won 6-4, 6-2 win over Petar Mandic to clinch the win for the Irish.

Notre Dame then hung on for three wins in three-set matches. Andy Warford (Bismarck, N.D.) won 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 over Dunn at No. 6 singles, and Matt Daly (Wellesley, Mass.) rallied for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 win over Chidley. Sachire completed the win with his three-set win to improve to 10-1 in dual matches. Cleveland twice saved a pair of set points serving at 5-6 in both the first and third sets to force each set into a tiebreaker. Sachire jumped out to quick leads in both with leads of 6-3 in their first tiebreaker and 6-0 in the second tiebreaker.

The Irish swept singles for the second consecutive match in their 6-1 win over Boise State on Fri., Feb. 26, at the Eck Tennis Pavilion. The Broncos won the doubles point in the match to take a 1-0 advantage, but the Irish came back to win all six singles matches for the victory. Sachire, Patterson and Smith all won in straight sets. Laflin lost his first set in 1999 before rallying for a 5-7, 7-6 (2), 6-2 win over Cory Dalos at No. 4 singles. Daly and Warford also won in three sets.

Notre Dame swept singles for the third straight match against Ohio State on Sat., Feb. 27, in Columbus. Sachire and Patterson won 8-4 over Andrew Carlson and Kevin Hawke at No. 1 doubles to clinch the doubles point for the Irish. Notre Dame then dropped just one set in six singles matches. Laflin wasted four match points leading 6-2 in the second-set tiebreaker before holding on for a 7-5, 6-7 (7), 6-3 win over Derek DeFalco at No. 4 singles. Sachire beat 93rd-ranked Chris Porter 6-2, 6-2 at No. 1 singles.

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 50-11 with his 13-1 mark this year. Three of his wins came against top 10 players, including Texas’ Jack Brasington and Wisconsin’s Mark Loughrin. His overall singles record is 27-5 this year with 16 wins against ranked opponents.

PATTERSON CONSISTENT IN SINGLES AND DOUBLES: Senior captain Brian Patterson has won six straight singles matches to up his career singles record to 77-38 in his three-plus years at Notre Dame. A two-time NCAA doubles participant, Patterson’s doubles record is nearly identical to his singles slate at 76-39, just one win behind his singles mark. His singles record in dual matches is 58-29 for his career with a 30-7 mark since the beginning of his junior year.

LAFLIN UNBEATEN IN 1999: Irish freshman Andrew Laflin remains perfect in 1999 with a 10-0 record. 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. Since first moving up to the No. 4 position in the Iowa match, Laflin has gone 4-0. His overall singles record stands at 17-5, and he boasts a 15-0 record when he wins the first set.

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. He beat small college champion Mario Toledo of Georgia Perimeter 6-0, 6-1, Tulsa’s 53rd-ranked Nenad Toroman 6-2, 6-4, sixth-ranked Esteban Carril of TCU 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 and 25th-ranked Daniel Andersson of VCU 6-2, 6-3 in his four consolation matches.

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. Sachire reached the final by rallying for a 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-4 semifinal win over Washington’s unseeded and 21st-ranked Robert Kendrick. The Canfield, Ohio, native and former Canfield High School standout was one of eight seeds in the 64-player draw at the ITA All-American Championships. He reached the quarterfinals of the tournament last year as a sophomore. Sachire finished with a 5-1 record in the tournament and posted straight-set wins over Texas A&M’s Shuon Madden, Northwestern’s 64th-ranked Doug Bohaboy, Miami’s 46th-ranked Ivan Rodrigo and Stanford’s 30th-ranked Alex Kim to reach the semifinals.

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

FALL REVIEW: In addition to reaching the final of the ITA All-American Championships, Ryan Sachire led the team in wins with his 12-3 record, including seven wins over ranked players. Matt Daly was right behind Sachire with 11 wins against just two losses. He went 5-0 at the Thunderbird Invitational at Arizona State in the round robin. His first loss came to teammate Casey Smith 7-5, 6-4 at the Rice Invitational and his second loss came in the third round of the ITA Region IV championship to eventual champion Mark Loughrin of Wisconsin by a 6-1, 7-6 (6) score.

Andrew Laflin finished with a 7-5 record in his first fall season at Notre Dame and qualified for the ITA Region IV championship where he had a first round bye, won his second round match and lost in the third round to Jon Svensson of Minnesota. Smith opened his collegiate tennis career by winning his flight at the Rice Invitational and earned a seed at the ITA Region IV championship. Aaron Talarico lost just once, finishing with a 7-1 record and a five match winning streak at the Thunderbird Invitational. Javier Taborga went 5-3 with two of his three losses coming in three sets.

Sachire Success

Ryan Sachire spent the summer of 1998 with the USTA Summer All-American team, traveling the pro circuit. He won a futures tournament in College Station, Texas, and reached the finals of the doubles event at a satellite tournament in Springfield, Mo. Here is where Sachire stands during the dual-match season of his junior year:

         2   ITA national ranking     50   career dual-match singles wins     98   career singles wins    717  ATP Tour world ranking   

Intercollegiate Tennis Association Rankings

Team        This  Last  School                TotalRank  Year  1.    1.  Stanford (9)          600  2.    3.  Georgia               588  3.    4.  Mississippi State (1) 576  4.    6.  Mississippi           566 T5.   10.  Illinois *            563 T5.    7.  UCLA                  563  7.    5.  Texas *               562  8.    9.  Pepperdine            535  9.   15.  South Carolina        534T10.   21.  SMU                   523T10.   14.  Duke *                523 12.   19.  Tennessee             509 13.   16.  Florida               507 14.   13.  Texas A&M             491 15.    8.  USC                   490 16.   18.  Harvard               477 17.   27.  Arizona State         463 18.   17.  Washington            460T19.   28.  Baylor                452T19.    2.  LSU                   452 21.   22.  Alabama               439 22.   30.  Fresno State          432 23.   33.  Minnesota *           428 24.   26.  Notre Dame            416 25.   11.  California            415
* indicates Notre Dame opponents

Other Notre Dame opponents

 26.   25.  Kentucky              400 33.   51.  Purdue                341 37.   32.  Northwestern          311 43.   20.  Boise State           260 53.   31.  Miami (Fla.)          175 54.   68.  Michigan State        161 59.   55.  Michigan              132 63.   59.  Wisconsin             110

Singles

This  Last  Name                  SchoolRank  Rank  1.    1.  James Blake           Harvard    2.    3.  Ryan Sachire          Notre Dame  3.    8.  Robert Kendrick       Washington  4.   10.  Peter Handoyo         Tennessee  5.    6.  Esteban Carril        TCU  6.   16.  Francisco Rodriguez   Alabama  7.   13.  Oliver Freelove       Illinois  8.    6.  Ryan Wolters          Stanford  9.    9.  Luis Uribe            Kansas 10.   12.  Guillaume Legat       South Carolina 11.   38.  Aaron Marchetti       Virginia Tech 12.   11.  Hirsham Hemeda        Georgia 13.   25.  Daniel Andersson      VCU 14.   NR   Jean-Noel Grinda      UCLAT15.   23.  Chad Carlsson         GeorgiaT15.    5   Adam Marchetti        Virginia Tech 17.   15.  Efe Ustundag          RiceT18.   14.  Tom Chicoine          MinnesotaT18.  T21.  Alex Waske            San Diego State 20.  T17.  KJ Hippensteel        Stanford 21.   20.  Marco Baron           Mississippi State 22.    7.  Jack Brasington       Texas 23.   30.  Shuon Madden          Texas A&MT24.   29.  Jeff Morrison         FloridaT24.    2.  Brian Vahaly          Virginia