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May 1, 2010

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AUSTIN, Texas -- No. 3 Texas (24-2) nailed down a pair of doubles victories to claim the doubles point and added three singles victories from the bottom half of its singles lineup to emerge with a 4-0 win over No. 15 Texas Tech (21-5) Saturday in the semifinals of the 2010 Big 12 Championship at UT's Penick-Allison Tennis Center.

Texas advances to the finals of the Big 12 Championship for a fifth consecutive season. The top-seeded Longhorns will meet second-seeded Texas A&M in Sunday's Big 12 finals at 1 p.m. Central. The Aggies eliminated third-seeded Baylor by a 4-1 count in the other semifinal match.

Sunday's match will mark the third Big 12 finals meeting between the Longhorns and the Aggies. Texas A&M won the previous two meetings in 1998 and 2001.

Tied at four at second doubles, UT's Ed Corrie and Kellen Damico broke Tech's Gonzalo Escobar and Andre Stabile to assume a 5-4 lead. UT held and broke once more for a 7-4 lead and went on to an 8-5 win. At 3-all at first doubles, UT's Dimitar Kutrovsky and Josh Zavala broke Tech's Raony Carvalho and Rafael Garcia and went on to an 8-3 win to seal the doubles point for the Horns.

UT sophomore Jean Andersen pushed the Texas lead to 2-0 with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Stabile at fourth singles. UT's Zavala took the first set off of Tech's Vitor Manzini at fifth singles, 6-4 and outlasted him in a second-set tiebreaker, 7-3 to extend the Horns' lead to 3-0.

UT sophomore Vasko Mladenov finished off the Texas victory at sixth singles, where he dealt Tech's Raphael Pfister a 6-1, 7-5 defeat.

2010 Big 12 Championship - Semifinals

#1 Texas 4, #4 Texas Tech 0
Doubles - Order of Finish: 2, 1
1 Kutrovsky/Zavala (UT) def. Carvalho/Garcia (TTU) - 8-3
2 Corrie/Damico (UT) def. Escobar/Stabile (TTU) - 8-5
3 Andersen/Mladenov (UT) vs. Manzini/Gonzalez (TTU) - Tech led 6-4, susp.

Singles - Order of Finish: 4, 5, 6
1 Dimitar Kutrovsky (UT) vs. Raony Carvalho (TTU) - Tied 3-6, 6-3, 1-1, susp.
2 Ed Corrie (UT) vs. Gonzalo Escobar (TTU) - Tech led 6-4, 4-2, susp.
3 Kellen Damico (UT) vs. Rafael Garcia (TTU) - UT led 3-6, 6-4, 1-0, susp.
4 Jean Andersen (UT) def. Andre Stabile (TTU) - 6-3, 6-3
5 Josh Zavala (UT) def. Vitor Manzini (TTU) - 6-4, 7-6 (3)
6 Vasko Mladenov (UT) def. Raphael Pfister (TTU) - 6-1, 7-5

Records: Texas 24-2; Texas Tech 21-5
Match Notes: Texas advances to the Big 12 finals for a fifth consecutive season. UT will face second-seeded Texas A&M in Sunday's championship match at 1 p.m. Central.
Time of Match: 2:50

POST-MATCH COMMENTS
Texas head coach Michael Center
On the win: I thought we played well in the doubles. We got some early breaks at Nos. 1 and 2 though we got behind at 3, we fought back. Our energy was good in the doubles, and it was big for us to get that point. We won three first sets in the bottom half of our singles lineup, but a couple of our guys at the top fought back and split sets at Nos. 1 and 3. I give the guys in the bottom part of our lineup a lot of credit for finishing their matches and not letting Tech get any momentum.

On advancing to the Big 12 title match for a fifth straight year: We had to beat a top-15 team to advance today, and Texas Tech is an extremely talented team. For us to be playing in the (Big 12) title match for a fifth year in a row is quite an accomplishment. I think we'll be excited and ready to go tomorrow.

Texas Tech head coach Tim Siegel
On the match: Texas was too good today. I thought that we played pretty good doubles, but they were just much better than we were in the doubles. At singles Nos. 1, 2, and 3, we had chances to win them all. I thought that we played very well at Nos. 5 and 6 in the second sets. We gave ourselves a chance. If we could have pulled out one of those sets at the end, we would have had a chance to keep the match going, but Texas was just too good. They proved why they are No. 3 in the country.