MSU's Borges, Rakic advance at the NCAA Championships

For Starkville Daily News

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Down 9-6 in the deciding 10-point match tiebreaker in Friday's NCAA Round of 16 doubles match, it was now or never for Mississippi State's topranked and top-seeded duo of Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic.

The tandem chose the “now” option, stunning Wisconsin's 14th-ranked Chema Carranza and Josef Dodridge by taking the final five points in the breaker for a 0-6, 7-5, 1-0(9) triumph to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship.

Borges, the No. 3 seed in singles, also reached the quarters in the NCAA Singles Championship earlier in the day by taking a 7-6(7), 7-5 triumph over Florida's No. 14 Alfredo Perez, rallying from down a service break in both sets for the victory.

Wisconsin's Carranza and Dodridge started off on a tear in the afternoon doubles affair, winning the first seven games to go up 6-0, 1-0 on the State duo. The Bulldogs fought back and took a 3-1 lead in the second. However, the Badger tandem broke back to 3-3 and the teams traded service holds until Wisconsin led 5-4 with a chance to seal the match. But Borges and Rakic stood strong against the Big Ten's top doubles team, holding at love, then breaking and holding again to take the second frame to force a 10-point match tiebreaker for the second straight day.

Wisconsin went up 4-2, but MSU evened it up at 4-all, then, Carranza and Dodridge won five of the next seven points to take a seemingly insurmountable 9-6 lead, with three match point chances. The Bulldog All-American tandem stormed back, fending off three straight match points – the first two with the Badgers serving – to force a 9-all tie. The Bulldogs then took a 10-9 lead with Wisconsin serving. After a brief rally, Borges landed a strong volley out of the Badger pair's reach to send the duo to the national quarterfinals, the first Bulldog pair to make the NCAA quarters since 2000. The win came less than 24 hours after Borges and Rakic overcame a 7-4 deficit in a deciding super tiebreaker in the first round against Louisville.

“We stuck together as a team and tried to support each other as much as we could,” Rakic said. “We tried to stay calm, even after losing the first set. When we were down 9-6 (in the third set tiebreaker), we said this was it, it was now or never. We found a way to win. I am still shocked that we pulled it out two days in a row. It shows the support we have between each other and how much we trust each other on the court.”

Borges and Rakic are now set to face UCLA's 29th-ranked Martin Redlicki and Evan Zhu in today's quarterfinals, with match time set for approximately 2 p.m. The Bruin duo advanced by taking a 7-5, 6-3 victory against Central Florida's Korey Lovett and Eero Vasa, a 5-8 seed in the tourney.

“Strahinja and Nuno gave us another great effort,” Mississippi State head coach Matt Rob-

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