The senior All-American doubles team of Austin Krajicek and Jeff Dadamo became the first ever Texas A&M doubles team to advanced to the national finals at the NCAA Doubles Championship being conducted at the Taube Family Tennis Center at Stanford. The Aggies defeated the top doubles team from Georgia Tech, Kevin King and Juan Spir, in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6 (7) in the national semifinals on Sunday.
“It was a great match for us,” Krajicek said. “It was a close contest all the way through. We had some of our best points on the break in the first set and then in the tiebreaker in the second.”
“We didn’t play our best today, but on the big points we were able to come through,” Dadamo said.
The Aggies will face a familiar opponent as the top doubles team from Stanford, Bradley Klahn and Ryan Thacher, Seeded 5-8, defeated the Florida tandem of Sekou Bangoura and Alexandre Lacroix, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) to advance on their home courts. Krajicek and Dadamo defeated Klahn and Thacher, 9-8 in a tiebreaker in the team portion of the NCAA Championships on Thursday, May 19.
Krajicek (CRY-check) and Dadamo (duh-DOM-oh) have already earned All-America honors for the second consecutive year by being seeded third in the NCAA Championships. The Aggie dynamic duo posted a 27-3 dual match record this spring and ended the 2010 fall campaign with a national title at the USTA/ITA National Indoor Doubles Championship in Flushing, New York. To begin their title run at the National Indoors, Krajicek and Dadamo beat third-seeded Klahn and Thacher from Stanford, 8-5, beat Ohio State’s duo of Matt Allare and Peter Kobelt, 8-6, and then beat Georgia Tech’s tandem of King and Spir, 6-4, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (6) to advance to the finals where the Aggies defeated the Ole Miss doubles team of Chris Thiemann and Marcel Thiemann, 6-3, 7-6 (3).
Ever since this NCAA format has been in place on the men’s side since 1946, this marks the first Texas A&M singles or doubles team to reach the NCAA Championship finals. Krajicek, from Brandon, Florida, reached the NCAA doubles semifinals his freshman season with teammate Conor Pollock. Dadamo, from Tampa, Florida, transferred to A&M after playing his first two seasons with Florida.
This spring, Dadamo won the 2011 Most Outstanding Player honor in helping lead the Aggies to the 2011 Big 12 Championships crown, and Dadamo was honored as the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year in 2010.
Krajicek, the two-time Big 12 Player of the Year and the all-time Aggie leader in doubles victories now with 111 wins, advanced to the quarterfinals as a sophomore and reached the NCAA semifinals as a freshman with former teammate Conor Pollock.
“I am very proud of Jeff and Austin and they have continued to play well,” Aggie head coach Steve Denton said. “This may be a first in NCAA Championship history to have four lefties on the court in the final match. This will be a very, very competitive match and will probably come down to whoever is able to return best because all of these players are good service and volley players.”
Despite being the first time for an Aggie doubles team to compete in the NCAA finals, Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton and assistant Bob McKinley are very familiar with outstanding doubles play. McKinley, who was recently named the 2011 National ITA Assistant Coach of the Year, was a four-time All-American at Trinity University and reached the NCAA finals twice in his career. He also coached two doubles teams to the national championship match with Erick Iskersky and Ben McKown winning the national championship in 1979, and then Tony Giammalva and John Benson was the national runner-up in 1980 for Trinity. On the professional circuit, McKinley reached the doubles finals of the U.S. Open and Denton won the U.S. Open doubles crown in 1982. Both McKinley and Denton reached the ranking of No. 2 in the world in doubles during their professional careers. Both Denton and McKinley are members of the ITA Hall of Fame.