April 22, 2008

Lincoln, NE (UWIRE) -- Winless in the Big 12 Conference.

For Nebraska's men's tennis team, it means they finish last in the regular season with only the Big 12 Championships to look forward to before school is out.

The Cornhuskers knew they faced a tough task when they went up against the No. 13 Baylor Bears down in Waco, Texas, last Friday. As NU Coach Kerry McDermott said, Baylor was just too good. Following a 7-0 defeat, the Huskers departed for Norman, Okla., to take on No. 74 Oklahoma.

All last week, the coaches and players were talking about how this was their best chance at earning a win in the Big 12. Sunday came, and Nebraska floundered, losing 6-1 to a team that was down this year, according to McDermott.

"I was very, very disappointed in the way we lost," Assistant Coach Joerg Barthel said. "Right now, I don't have a clear explanation for what happened there. Most of the team fought extremely hard and wanted it badly."

He said both he and McDermott were astonished at the outcome of the match. In many cases, Barthel said, he figured the Huskers were favored to win in certain singles matches. The only bright spot came from junior Renato Melo, who won his 12th match this spring, 6-3, 6-4.

After losing the doubles point, Barthel thought his squad could regain its composure and win some singles matches. He said there were two players, specifically, who did not seem to give it their best effort during singles play. Without inferring which players, he said the scores would tell the story. Barthel also said these two had been producing many wins for the team this year and this was unexpected.

"Out of eight guys, we had six that were very, very fired up," Barthel said. "They were very excited to play. ... If you have two guys that just come out very slow and are not showing the heart that their opponents did, then it's very hard to win a match."

Freshman Calin Paar, who has been scorching the courts with his singles play, lost 6-1, 6-4 in the match with the Sooners. He said he felt mentally tired going into the match.

"There's no excuse for my performance," Paar said. "I played really bad. I tried in the second set to come back, but it just didn't go anymore how I wanted."

Paar has a 15-9 record in singles play this spring and is 10-7 playing No. 2 singles for Nebraska. He has highlighted his spring campaign with two wins over nationally-ranked guys, Ivan Puchkarov from Oklahoma State and Wil Spencer of Texas A&M.

Paar said he had a lot of things on his mind before the Oklahoma match. He said he will try his best during the Big 12 Championships, which start on Thursday in Austin, Texas, and conclude on Sunday.

"I think every player has a match where he's not playing so good," Paar said. "I want to apologize to the coaches because, with this match, they expected, from me, a better performance."

(C) 2008 Daily Nebraskan via UWIRE