The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
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USC
No. 3 Men’s Tennis falls, 4-2, to No. 15 USC
03.24.2019 | Men's Tennis
The Longhorns dropped their first home match and only the second overall this season and are now 17-2.
Austin, Texas – The No. 3 Texas Men's Tennis team dropped its first home match and only its second overall this season in a hard-fought 4-2 defeat to No. 15 USC on Sunday at the Texas Tennis Center.
Including a previous 4-0 win over the Trojans at the ITA Indoors in Chicago on Feb. 16, the Longhorns completed non-conference action with a 17-2 record, which still equals its best through 19 matches since 2002.
"USC played really well," interim head coach Bruce Berque said. "I think they were pretty hungry to beat us after we beat them last time. They deserve credit for playing a lot of really good tennis and taking a pretty tight doubles point and playing really well across the board. I thought our guys competed well and played fairly well, but not quite well enough on all of the courts to get the win today."
Similarly, Texas dropped its first doubles point at home and just the second all season with the last one coming against No. 2 Ohio State at the ITA Indoors in Chicago on Feb. 17. The point came down to second doubles where seniors Colin Markes and Leonardo Telles trailed Laurens Verboven and Jack Jaede, 2-0, but were able to equalize at 2-2 and then 3-3, but dropped the final three games, two of which swung on deuce points to finish 6-3. Markes and Telles are now 11-3 in dual match play this season.
Despite falling behind, 3-0 and 4-1, junior Yuya Ito and freshman Chih Chi Huang also fought back against Daniel Cukierman and Tanner Smith to even their match, 4-4, but eventually fell, 6-4, to move to 10-3 this season in dual match play. The No. 7 pair senior Harrison Scott and junior Sigsgaard were up in their match, 6-5, and leading the next game against the No. 16 duo Brandon Holt and Riley Smith, but it went unfinished with the completion of the other two matches.
In singles, USC briefly extended its lead to 2-0 as Riley Smith topped Markes, 6-3, 6-2, in fifth singles. It was just Markes' second singles defeat in dual match play this season. However, No. 59 Scott quickly responded at fourth singles with a 6-3, 6-2 victory of his own over No. 71 Logan Smith. He was able to jump out to leads of 4-0 in the first set and 4-1 in the second and never looked back from there on the way to the win, which extended Scott's record to 11-4 in singles dual match play, including three wins over ranked opponents.
No. 9 Ito then evened the match at 2-2 with a top-10 win over No. 10 Cukierman, 6-4, 6-3, at second singles. In the first set, Ito captured two deuce-point wins to get out to a 3-0 lead and then got a third to make it 4-1. Cukierman picked up a late break to get within 5-4, but Ito answered on a deuce point for the win. The second set stayed on serve until Ito broke on a deuce point for a 5-3 lead and then closed it out from there.
No. 17 Holt retook the lead for the Trojans with a 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 6 Sigsgaard at first singles. Both sets reached 5-4 but Holt was able to win each from there. Mor Bulis of USC then picked up the clincher against Huang, 6-2, 7-5 at sixth singles. Huang fell behind 3-0 in the first set, but in the second set built a 5-3 lead. However Bulis went on a 4-0 run to finish at 7-5. That left just third singles unfinished where No. 104 Telles was leading No. 28 Verboven, 6-4, 4-4.
The Longhorns will next open Big 12 Conference play and complete their seven-match homestand with contests against No. 29 Texas Tech on Friday, March 29 at 6 p.m., and No. 6 Baylor on Sunday, March 31 at 3:30 p.m.
No. 15 USC 4, No. 3 Texas 2
Singles – Order of Finish (5,4,2,1,6)
1. #17 Brandon Holt (USC) def. #6 Christian Sigsgaard (UT), 6-4, 6-4
2. #9 Yuya Ito (UT) def. #10 Daniel Cukierman (USC), 6-4, 6-3
3. #104 Leonardo Telles (UT) vs. #28 Laurens Verboven (USC), 6-4, 4-4, unfinished
4. #59 Harrison Scott (UT) def. #71 Logan Smith (USC), 6-3, 6-2
5. Riley Smith (USC) def. Colin Markes (UT), 6-3, 6-2
6. Mor Bulis (USC) def. Chih Chi Huang (UT), 6-2, 7-5
Doubles – Order of Finish (3,2)
1. #7 Christian Sigsgaard/Harrison Scott (UT) vs. #16 Brandon Holt/Riley Smith (USC), 6-5, unfinished
2. Jack Jaede/Laurens Verboven (USC) def. Leonardo Telles/Colin Markes (UT), 6-3
3. Daniel Cukierman/Tanner Smith (USC) def. Yuya Ito/Chih Chi Huang (UT), 6-4
(UT)
Players Mentioned
