Oklahoma Sooners Return to NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship Final

With three Big 12 teams among the final four in the 2015 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships, it was certain that at least one of the three would be playing for the national championship. We’re now down to the final two, and the Big 12 team left standing is the Oklahoma Sooners, the top seed in this year’s tournament.

Oklahoma ousted fellow Big 12 school TCU by a score of 4-3 in one of the national semifinal matches on Monday at the Hurd Tennis Center on the campus of Baylor.

The Baylor Bears, the host school for the national Final Four in Tennis, were not as fortunate in the other semifinal match, which was contested simultaneously to the Oklahoma-TCU match.

The Bears, seeded No. 2 and hoping for a rematch with Oklahoma, their opponent this season in the Big 12 Tennis Championships, fell to No. 3 Virginia 4-2. The elimination of the Baylor men came 24 hours after the Lady Bears had fallen to No. 1 seed USC in a quarterfinals match in the NCAA Women’s Championship.

That sets up the championship final this afternoon on Baylor’s home court between the Sooners (29-2) and the Cavaliers (28-3).

This will be Oklahoma’s second straight trip to the NCAA championship final in Tennis. The Sooners lost in last year’s championship in Athens, Ga., to top-seeded USC 4-2. Sooners’ head coach John Roddick, the brother of tennis professional Andy Roddick, is hoping to see his team hoist the championship trophy this time around.

“We know Virginia well, and it’s going to be a good match,” the OU coach said to reporters following the Sooners’ semifinals victory…”With these kind of teams, the matches are toss-ups. We have to go out and play well. When we do that, we know we have a very good chance to win.”