May 28, 2006
KC Corkery's run to the NCAA Singles Championship ended today as he was beaten by Somdev Devvarman of Virginia, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 in a semifinal match at the Taube Tennis Center. Corkery was attempting to become the 14th NCAA men's tennis singles champion from Stanford, but he fell short today against Devvarman, who was seeded 9-16. The championship match between Devvarman and Benjamin Kohlloefel of UCLA will take palce Monday at noon.
After losing the first set 6-4, Corkery found himself down 4-2 in the second set before reeling off three straight wins to take a 5-4 advantage. He wound up winning the second set 7-5. In the third set, however, Devvarman took control early en route to a 6-3 win.
"It was a good match," said Corkery. "He's a really good player. He makes you play a lot of balls and he ran me side to side a lot. I got a little tired of that. I felt good early in the game and then I just had a little mental lapse.
"You really have to put the ball away when you're up at the net and I let him stick around a little bit," he said."He's a great shot-maker. He can really come up with some great shots when you give him a target. He was just a little bit better than me today," said Corkery.
"As you go through a tournament like this, you're not going to play your best tennis everyday. I don't think any one day did I play exceptionally well. Throughout the tournament, I think the common theme with me was just a lot of missed opportunities.
"It wasn't my best tennis today," he said. "I'd be surprised if that was his best tennis. It's hard to play your very best everyday. You just try to play the best that you can that day. I thought I did a pretty good job of just trying to stay in there.
"The crowd helped me out," he said. They kept me in it. I thought I tried to do what I could today. I just came up a little short. It was a great week. Unless you win the tournament, I guess you have to lose sometime. I'm not disappointed. I've had a great career here," said Corkery.
Corkery finished his Stanford career at the 26th men's player in history to earn ITA All-America honors four consecutive years. He was 32-6 in singles this season.