The Ohio State men's tennis team saw its season come to a close on Monday afternoon as the Buckeyes fell to Virginia in the NCAA semifinals.
The Cavaliers were one of just three teams to beat the Buckeyes during the regular season and they did it again on Monday, topping Ohio State 4-1 in Athens, Georgia.
The Buckeyes got on the board first with the doubles point. J.J. Wolf and Hunter Tubert notched a 6-3 win on court three, but Martin Joyce and Hugo Di Feo fell on court two, shifting all eyes to court one with Virginia up 6-5. Mikael Torpegaard and Herkko Pollanen held on to win the next game and send it to a tie breaker where they would win and secure the match's first point.
From that point on, it was all Virginia. The Cavaliers dominated the singles matches, winning five of six first sets and sweeping the matches on courts two, four and five to take a 3-1 lead.
But the Buckeyes didn't quit.
Torpegaard, Di Feo and Kyle Seelig each battled. Torpegaard took his match to a third-set tie breaker, Di Feo extended his match to a third set after a close second set and Seelig battling to stay alive in the second set. Then, with Seelig facing two match points and Torpegaard up 6-3 in a tie breaker, the sky opened up.
Rain forced a delay of over four hours and the match, which began at 10 a.m., did not resume until 5 p.m. when it was moved inside. It was there the Buckeyes fell. Torpegaard won his tiebreaker immediately after the break to make it 3-2, but Seelig was unable to stretch his match to a third set and the Buckeyes lost 4-2.
Torp won his tiebreaker on the first point to make it 3-2 but after a long rally, Kyle losses the point and the match. Buckeyes fall 4-2 pic.twitter.com/WGJtWyk3Fz
— Ohio State M Tennis (@OhioState_MTEN) May 22, 2017
Ohio State finishes the season 33-4 and won its 12th-straight regular-season Big Ten title and won the conference tournament for the 10th time in 12 years. The team also reached the NCAA Tournament sweet 16 for the 12th-straight season.
Buckeye tennis season isn't quite over yet, though. Five players were selected to compete in this week's singles and doubles championship including Torpegaard, who is the No. 2 seed in the singles tournament. Ohio State was also the only team to qualify two doubles teams to the doubles championship.
The women's team is also still alive in the NCAA tournament. Their national semifinal match against Stanford was delayed due to the rain as well and will now begin at 8 p.m.
