NCAA Men’s Tennis : Barham and Yates of UC Irvine Lose to USC in Doubles Final

Rick Leach and Scott Melville of USC defeated the doubles team of Julian Barham and Darren Yates of UC Irvine, 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, Saturday in the final of the NCAA Individual Tennis Championships at the University of Georgia in Athens.

The Anteater team, ranked seventh in the nation, finished the season with a 34-8 record.

Barham and Yates led, 5-4, in the final set but were broken at 5-5, and USC’s team held serve to win the match.

In the first set, the UCI team broke serve in the first game and never trailed. But in the second set, Barham’s first serve was broken and the UCI team never led.

This was the first time in the Anteaters’ 10-year Division I history that they had tennis players competing for an individual national championship.

Barham is the only senior on the UCI team, which lost to Cal State Long Beach in the second round of the NCAA Championships last week, 5-3.

Leach and Melville, ranked No. 3 in the country, become the Trojans’ 19th doubles title team, more than any other school. Leach teamed with Tim Pawsat to win it last year.

Andrew Burrow of the University of Miami recovered from the lob attack by Michigan’s Dan Goldberg and went on to win the singles championship, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.