The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Arkansas
No. 8 Men's Tennis tops Arkansas, 5-2
02.22.2009 | Men's Tennis
Feb. 22, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas -- No. 8 Texas (9-2) swept the doubles session and took four of six singles matches in a 5-2 win over Arkansas Sunday afternoon at UT's Penick-Allison Tennis Center.
Texas opened the match with a stellar doubles session en route to a 1-0 lead. Juniors Dimitar Kutrovsky and Josh Zavala tallied the first win when they dealt Tyler Tarnasky and Bradwin Williams an 8-2 defeat at second doubles. Senior Jonah Kane-West and junior Olivier Sajous clinched the doubles point for Texas with an 8-3 win over Dmitry Lebedev and Nicholas Spinazze at third doubles. Less than a minute later, sophomores Ed Corrie and Kellen Damico completed the doubles sweep at the first slot with an 8-4 win over Arkansas' 40th-ranked duo of Matt Hogan and Blake Strode.
Kutrovsky pushed the Texas lead to 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-3 win over the Razorbacks' 16th-ranked Strode at first singles, and Lebedev drew Arkansas within 2-1 after defeating UT's Damico by a 6-4, 6-2 count at third singles. However, Texas would soon put the match away with victories at the fifth and sixth singles positions. Zavala posted a 6-3, 6-3 win over Spinazze at fifth singles, and junior Jon Wiegand tallied a 7-5, 6-2 win over Nikolas Zogaj at sixth singles to seal the victory for the Longhorns.
Arkansas' Tarnasky outlasted Texas' Sajous in a third-set super-tiebreaker at fourth singles, 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-6), and Corrie rallied for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 win at the second slot over Hogan to finish the match at 5-2 in favor of Texas.
"This was a nice win for us today over an excellent Arkansas team," UT coach Michael Center said. "We were particularly good in doubles today, and that was exciting to see. We had some great individual performances, but we're still having lapses. We've got to clean those up if we want to be a great team. We are making too many mental mistakes. We had opportunities to put them away earlier, but I give Arkansas credit for hanging in there. We've got to do a better job."
Texas resumes play on Saturday, Feb. 28 at SMU.
#8 Texas 5, Arkansas 2
Doubles - Order of Finish: 2, 3, 1
1 #55 Corrie/Damico (UT) def. #40 Hogan/Strode (UA) - 8-4
2 #16 Kutrovsky/Zavala (UT) def. Tarnasky/Williams (UA) - 8-2
3 Kane-West/Sajous (UT) def. Lebedev/Spinazze (UA) - 8-3
Singles - Order of Finish: 1, 3, 5, 6, 4, 2
1 #30 Dimitar Kutrovsky (UT) def. #16 Blake Strode (UA) - 6-1, 6-3
2 #45 Ed Corrie (UT) def. #70 Matt Hogan (UA) - 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
3 Dmitry Lebedev (UA) def. #99 Kellen Damico (UT) - 6-4, 6-2
4 Tyler Tarnasky (UA) def. #76 Olivier Sajous (UT) - 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-6)
5 Josh Zavala (UT) def. Nicholas Spinazze (UA) - 6-3, 6-3
6 Jon Wiegand (UT) def. Nikolas Zogaj (UA) - 7-5, 6-2
