Nov. 2, 2007

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Senior No. 9-ranked Ryan Rowe of the Illinois men's tennis team notched a first-round upset over No. 3-seeded Robert Farah of USC, 6-4, 7-6(6), in the opening round of the 2007 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) National Indoor Championships hosted by Ohio State University in Columbus. After a break of serve sealed the first set, Rowe battled to the very end in the tiebreak in the second set to notch a straight sets victory over Farah, who was a finalist at the 2007 All-American Championships in early October.

"This is a great way to start the event, especially after a late start this evening," associate head coach George Husack said. "It was clear from the start that Ryan was ready to go, but when Farah settled in, he certainly made it tough. Farah competed well and forced Ryan out of his comfort zone at times."

In the opening set, it was Rowe who struck with the first break of serve to take 2-0 lead before Farah evened the affair at 3-all. Yet, the Illini two-time All-American struck again to take a 5-4 advantage before serving for the match and the first set, 6-4.

In the second, Farah seemed to settle into the match as he stood toe-to-toe with Rowe at 3-all. However, building on his momentum from the opening frame, Rowe notched another break to serve for the match again at 5-4.

Farah, however, played with nothing to lose down the stretch to break back and send the contest into a second-set tiebreak. There, Rowe went up mini break at 3-2 and held two serves to go up 5-2 and gain a solid lead. The Trojan, however, was not going away easily, as he countered by holding his next serve to slim the tiebreak lead to 5-4.

Rowe won the next point to give him match point at 6-4, but again it was Farah who held on, as he used a backhand offensive lob that landed on the baseline to stay alive at 6-5. Farah held again but Rowe got a mini-break back after smashing an overhead to give him his second match point at 7-6. With the match on his racquet, Rowe dropped a volley after coming in on a rocket serve and watched a forehand from Farah go long to claim the 8-6 tiebreak win and the match victory.

"Ryan didn't let some missed opportunities get the best of him," Husack said. "He played solid all the way through and certainly was happy to finish the evening off with a victory."

Rowe now will face No. 100-ranked Albert Larregola of Virginia Tech in the second round. Larregola was a winner over No. 120-ranked Drew Eberly of Ohio State in his opening round tilt after a nail-biting three-set victory, 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4. The winner of Rowe/Larregola will play their quarterfinal match on Friday night against the winner of the Daniel Valverdu of Miami and Clancy Shields of Boise State match.

Overall at the championships, top seeds had some disappointing results in opening-round play on Thursday. On the men's side, No. 1-ranked Somdev Devvarman of Virginia and No.4 Greg Ouellette of Florida were the only seeded players to survive. Second-seeded Travis Helgeson of Georgia, Farah of USC, No. 5 Bryan Koniecko of Ohio State, No. 6 Erling Tveit of Mississippi, No.7 Luke Shields of Boise State and No.8 Andre Begemann of Pepperdine all suffered first-round upsets.

Overall, play will resume on Friday morning with women's doubles quarterfinals starting at 9 a.m. Live scoring updates for all singles matches are available at www.itatennis.com. Starting on Saturday, video highlights and interviews will be available via www.thebraingame.net.