Beam gets last laugh over childhood rival By Brian Steere For the Daily There was more at stake for Henry Beam during Saturday's men's tennis match against DePaul than just winning. The Michigan sophomore from Kalamazoo had bragging rights on the line with his childhood friend John Michael, who was playing for the Blue Deamons. Beam and Michael grew up facing each other in various USTA tournaments and spent a year together at John Newcombe's Tennis Academy in New Braunfels, Tex. Although they weren't slotted to play against each other, Beam needed to convince his buddy that Michigan was the better team. Prior to the meet, Michael decided to talk some trash about his long-time rival. "Henry Beam is the most overrated player that I've ever seen," Michael said. "He'll go down in straight sets today." Michael's prediction seemed to be accurate after his friend quickly dropped the first set 6-1 to Depaul's fourth singles player Maciek Jozwiak. But, Beam rebounded from the slow start and used his intimidating size and power to bury Jozwiak, 6-2, 6-2, in the final two sets. Unfortunately for Michael, his day was not nearly as memorable. Michigan sophomore Ben Cox steamrolled past him, 6-3, 6-2. Afterwards, Beam had a chance to express his own feelings. "Who's overrated now?" Beam said. "John knows better than to shoot off his mouth like that; I'm glad he ate his words." Michigan dominated the rest of the matches en route to capturing a 7-0 victory over the Blue Demons. No. 1 singles player Matt Wright fired himself up after a point penalty late in the first set and beat John Cheregi 6-3, 6-2. Meanwhile, fellow seniors John Long and Ron Nano both won tight two-set matches at the No. 2 and 6 spots, respectively, to improve the Michigan seniors' singles record this season to 5-1. Sophomore Danny McCain completed the singles' triumph at No. 3 with an impressive three-set victory over DePaul's Robert Kurek. This match featured the most controversy, as both players received several point penalties and overrules from the chair umpire. The Wolverines secured the doubles point after taking two of the three matches. Michigan's No. 2 team, John Long and Brad McFarlane, took advantage of two consecutive service breaks at the end of the match to gain an 8-3 victory over John Michael and Rory McKinney. "The first break was definitely the difference in the match," McFarlane said. "It gave us the momentum to finish them off." Wright and McCain teamed up at the No. 1 position and also used several breaks to claim an 8-5 victory over John Cheregi and Andreas Murfiadakis. Originally on page 7B in the 1-31-2000 issue of the Daily.