Metka Clinches Win Over Virginia in ITA Indoor Semis

Ohio State won a thrilling victory over Virginia Sunday in the semifinals of the ITA Indoor National Championships in Houston.  #1 ranked Virginia was the defending champion, and had won 5 of the past 6 team indoor titles.  OSU will face USC in the final in a rematch of the 2012 Indoor final and the 2010 NCAA final.  USC defeated UCLA 4-3.

Ohio State dropped the doubles point and was down 3-1 in the match.  Peter Kobelt then defeated #3 ranked Mitchell Frank 6-4 in the 3rd, and Ralf Steinbach came back to win in a breaker in the 3rd at 4 singles.

With the team match at 3-3, Kevin Metka defeated the #1 recruit in the country Thai-Son Kwiatkowski 12-10 in a 3rd set tiebreaker 6-5 (5) 5-6 (5) 6-5 (10)!  Kevin, who College Tennis Online referred to as the MVP of the tournament so far, won the deciding court for the 2nd match in a row.  Kwiatkowski was a 3 time competitor in the US Open Juniors and was a semifinalist at the 2012 Orange Bowl.

On the ITA site, coach Ty Tucker said Kevin stepped up again and showed big heart, "He brought the game at him, and it ended up being one of the best college matches I've been apart of."

College Tennis Online has a point by point recap of the tiebreaker.  "If Kwiatkowski was going to win he was going to have to hit winner after winner and he nearly pulled it off.  Those two warriors played an extremely high quality of tennis with minimal unforced errors and each hit more winners than I could keep up with.  It was a great tennis match and it was a shame that there had to be a loser."

ITA Saturday Article
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The Lantern Article
College Tennis Online Article

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