Brazos Sports

Colunga eliminated at Texas Summer Grand Slam

This was not the way A&M Consolidated tennis player Frankie Colunga wanted to end the Texas Summer Grand Slam.

Sometimes, though, bad luck and good players foil the best laid plans.

Colunga was ousted from the consolation bracket when he lost to Dallas' Eric Musselman 6-3, 6-1 on Sunday at Texas A&M's Mitchell Tennis Center.

Musselman dropped his first-round match against Seabrook's Krishna Jana and won his first consolation match when his opponent withdrew with an injury.

"I'm disappointed," Colunga said. "I didn't play as well as I wanted to and he played really well. He moved me around. I tried to serve and volley, but it didn't really work.

"I wanted to go a little further, but there's always next year. I'm just going to work hard until next year and hopefully do good in the rest of my tournaments this year."

In the first set, neither player broke serve until the fourth game. Colunga broke Musselman in the sixth game, but was down 4-2 at that point. The two traded games before Musselman took the advantage and then won a deuce point on Colunga's serve to win the set.

Colunga, who was obviously frustrated at the end of the first set, managed to play Mussleman close the rest of the way. He lost too many deuce points in the second set, however, and could never gain any momentum.

While his serve gave him trouble Saturday, it was pretty consistent against Musselman. The problem was shot placement and just plain bad luck, as Colunga proved especially vulnerable close to the net.

"He had some really good passing shots," Colunga said. "There's nothing I could really do with those shots; they were really good shots. My serve was a little better but my backhand was still shaky. I'm just going to go work on it for the next tournament."

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NOTES -- Colunga has played in the Grand Slam since he was 13 years old. ... Colunga's older sister Sarah played for the Consol tennis team and graduated in Spring 2009. ... The participants in the main draw for boys and girls 18, 16 and 14 singles each played one match Sunday, with the winners advancing to the round of 32. Each consolation bracket player had two matches Sunday. The girls 12 doubles bracket began play Sunday, while the rest of the girls doubles brackets were off until Monday's quarterfinal matches. ... The boys 18 and 12 doubles brackets both played Sunday, with the boys 18 reaching the quarterfinals and the boys 12 beginning play. ... College Station's Marco Cepeda will face John E. Lee of Dallas at 10:40 a.m. Monday at A&M Consolidated's tennis courts.

http://www.brazossports.com/tennis/Colunga-s-time-is-up-at-Texas-Summer-Grand-Slam