The main draw of the ITA All-American Championships continued after the qualifying round wrapped up Wednesday afternoon.
The last remaining Notre Dame representative, senior Greg Andrews, knocked out South Carolina senior Tsvetan Mihov on Thursday morning but fell to Oklahoma junior Dane Webb, 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3, in the afternoon.
"[Webb] is a great player, so I knew it would be a competitive match," Irish coach Ryan Sachire said. "I'm sure [Andrews] feels like he could have played a little bit better and that he had a chance to win, but that shouldn't take anything away from [Webb]. He played a great match and deserved to win."
Andrews beat Mihov in consecutive sets, 6-3, 7-6 (3). According to Sachire, despite Mihov's higher ranking, Andrews brought a confidence to the match that helped him succeed.
"Greg [Andrews] is one of the best players in the country, but this tournament is chock-full of great players," Sachire said. "Even though Mihov had the seed next to his name, Greg was confident he could win if he played a good match. He wasn't perfect; there was a little bit of a blip there in the second set when he got down 3-0. Other than that, he played a really clean match and did a lot of good things."
As the only Notre Dame competitor on Wednesday, sophomore Quentin Monaghan fell to Texas freshman George Goldhoff, 7-5, 6-4, in the qualifying round and failed to make the main draw.
"Quentin played a good match," Sachire said. "It was a little bit like [Andrews] against Webb. When you're playing against the best competition, there's a really fine edge between winning and losing. A couple points here or a couple points there, and you have a different match."
According to Sachire, there is still a lot of room for the Irish to improve.
"It really comes down to having the right mentality and having the right focus throughout the match," Sachire said. "I think both our guys had some moments where they probably would have loved to have been a little sharper with their focus or assertive with their mentality. When you have those little lapses, it's hard to pull out a win against top players."
Nonetheless, Sachire said Monaghan and Andrews played well and will continue to improve.
"Certainly, that's something we'll continually talk to our guys about," Sachire said. "They will get better as time goes on, but both of them ... should be proud of their efforts."
The Irish will host four opposing teams this weekend for the first Bobby Bayliss Invitational - which honors the recently-retired Irish coach - as Western Michigan, Cleveland State, Louisville and Michigan State travel to Notre Dame. Play will begin at 2 p.m. today at the Eck Tennis Pavilion.
Contact Aaron Sant-Miller at asantmil@nd.edu
