Quotes from the NCAA Men's Singles & Doubles Championships - Semifinals

May 28, 2006

Recap | Results | Notes

No. 1 seed Benjamin Kohlloeffel, UCLA
"Actually, it was a bad match. We both didn't play our best. I guess I was the better of the worst today. I don't know what was wrong. We both started kind of nervous and missed a lot of balls and it kept on going for the whole match. I'm just glad to have it done and have a win."

"I'm glad I didn't play my very best tennis. I can come out and do that tomorrow. Tomorrow's a different day. You know how it is, one day it goes this way. Another day it goes the other way. I need to prepare as good as I can. We're going to have fun tomorrow."

(on tomorrow's NCAA Final): "I know both of my opponents very well. I've played both of them. I'll see who wins. I think its going to be a close match and KC has the advantage of the home crowd and home court advantage here. But I've played him before here in the dual match. I just try to play my game."

Erling Tveit, Mississippi
"It was a tough match. He made me work so hard for every single point. I didn't get as many points off of my serve as I usually do. It was just hard. He played really well. I did everything I could just to try and hang in there but in the end he was too good."

"I didn't put in enough first serves. With a guy at this level, to beat him I'd have to play really well. When my serve is not working it's really hard. He has a great return. He put a lot of balls back. I didn't get any control after my serve."

No. 3 seed Ryan Rowe & Kevin Anderson, Illinois
Rowe - "Today was a very good match. We played a very good team and we came out and played our game. We ended up taking it but we had to come back from behind. We just stayed in there and just kept coming after them."

Anderson - "It's just exciting. We get another chance to play tomorrow, which will be the finals. But it's just another tennis match, another tennis ball. We're really excited. We're going to be ready to go tomorrow and give it everything. It should be fun."

KC Corkery, Stanford
"It was a good match. He's a really good player. He makes you play a lot of balls and 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'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."

"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. 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. 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."

Somdev Devvarman, Virginia
"Like I said yesterday, I was expecting a good match and KC came out today and played well. It was fun. I didn't expect the crowd to be so nice to me but they were awesome. Me and KC played a good quality match."

"I felt like I was in control for the most part in the second set but I played a couple of loose points and he really took advantage of it. I definitely felt like I was stronger today and that really paid off towards the end. I saw him struggling a little bit and I took advantage of that."

On playing Benjamin Kohlloeffel in the final: "He's a great player, definitely one of the best college players in awhile. He's been very dominant all year. Everyone knows it. He knows it. I know it. But it just comes down to one match tomorrow. I'm going to give it all I have and just hope that I play a good match."

No. 2 Scott Doerner & Andre Begemann, Pepperdine
Doerner - "We're excited. We believed we could win it, just like the team [title]. Now we've given ourselves a chance. We're ready and we want to play a good match tomorrow."

On Illinois: "They're good players, the Illinois guys and they're ranked high and they're big guys just like these [Middle Tennessee State] guys. It should be a good game, serve and return. I think if we come out and play our game, we've got a good chance."

Begemann - "We came out big today. Today we broke early and we kept the positive energy and we have one more to go."