April 23, 2005

MOBILE, Ala. - No. 1 seed Middle Tennessee (17-6) swept No. 4 seed Denver (9-13), 4-0, in Saturday's men's semifinals of the 2005 Aéropostale Sun Belt Conference Championships. The Blue Raiders advance to play Louisiana-Lafayette in Saturday's 12:30 p.m. MT championship match, while Denver will play South Alabama for third place at 10 a.m. MT.

Middle Tennessee won the doubles point and claimed three singles wins for the victory. All-Sun Belt honoree Marco Born claimed a 6-4, 6-3 win over Niklas Person (Stockholm, Sweden) at No. 2 singles and Anant Sitaram defeated Steve Flaks (Colorado Springs, Colo.) 6-4, 6-3 at No. 5 singles. Greg Pollack defeated Kalle Rosen (Helsingborg, Sweden) at No. 6 singles 6-3, 6-2.

Denver's Adam Holmstrom (Eskilstuna, Sweden) and Persson defeated MT's 51st-ranked doubles team of Born and Andreas Siljestrom, 8-6. But, MT's 22nd-ranked twosome of Brandon Allan and Kai Schledorn claimed an 8-3 victory over Jason Tan (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Viktor Zetterholm (Stockholm, Sweden) at No. 2 doubles. The Blue Raiders claimed the doubles point with an 8-5 win by Pollack and Sitaram over Flaks and Rosen.

"Middle Tennessee is a good team," Denver head coach Geoff Young said. "Adam and Kalle had a good win at No. 1 doubles and we'll give it our best shot tomorrow for third place."

#29 Middle Tennessee 4, Denver 0

Singles

1) #111 Adam Holmstrom (DU) vs. #89 Andreas Siljestrom (MT) DNF

2) Marco Born (MT) def. Niklas Persson (DU) 6-4, 6-3

3) Viktor Zetterholm (DU) vs. Kai Schledorn (MT) DNF

4) Jason Tan (DU) vs. Brandon Allan (MT) DNF

5) Anant Sitaram (MT) def. Steve Flaks (DU) 6-4, 6-3

6) Greg Pollack (MT) def. Kalle Rosen (DU) 6-3, 6-2

Doubles

1) Holmstrom / Persson (DU) def. #51 Siljestrom / Born (MT) 8-6

2) #22 Allan / Schledorn (MT) def. Zetterholm / Tan (DU) 8-3

3) Sitaram / Pollack (MT) def. Flaks / Rosen (DU) 8-5