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Stanford
No. 4 Men’s Tennis defeats No. 8 Stanford, 4-2
02.16.2020 | Men's Tennis
The Longhorns closed play at the ITA National Indoor Championships with two wins, including over the Cardinal on Sunday and No. 16 UCLA on Friday.
Madison, Wis. – The No. 4 Texas Men's Tennis team defeated No. 8 Stanford, 4-2, on Sunday in Madison to finish with two wins in three matches at the ITA National Indoor Championships after defeating No. 16 UCLA on Friday.
The Longhorns opened by taking the doubles point for the second-straight match and followed with singles wins by freshman Cleeve Harper at No. 6, sophomore Chih Chi Huang at No. 4 and senior Yuya Ito, who came back from down a set and 5-2 in the second for a three-set victory at No. 1.
"It was a great win," head coach Bruce Berque said. "Like I said yesterday, any win we have at this tournament is a great win. Stanford is another blue blood program, we've been playing a lot of those lately, and we have nothing but respect for their program and their team. We feel fortunate to get through with a win, and I was very proud of our team because it wasn't looking good for a while and they stayed the course and were highly competitive. We had a lot of freshmen on the court and many of them stepped up. Cleeve once again got the first point on the board, Eliot (Spizzirri) was down a set and battled back and was about to serve for the match when it was clinched, Yuya was down a set and two breaks and managed to find a way to win, and Chih Chi did a great job. He's been working really hard and hasn't been satisfied with his level of play, but to his credit, he's put some extra work in the last few weeks, and today he came through in a really big match for us. We're really happy to finish the indoor portion of the season with two wins at this tournament, and we're looking forward to getting back to Austin, regrouping, getting healthy and getting back at it next week when we play Nebraska and UTSA."
With almost identical scores to when the Longhorns won the doubles point against Michigan in its previous match on Saturday, Texas took a 1-0 lead on Stanford. That included a 6-4 win by Harper and Ito over Alex Rotsaert and Filip Kolasinski at No. 3, and a 7-6 (4) victory by freshmen Jacob Bullard and Eliot Spizzirri over Timothy Sah and Sangeet Sridhar at No. 2. Axel Geller and Neel Rajesh had earlier downed Huang and senior Christian Sigsgaard, 6-3, at No. 1 by winning four out of five deuce points in the match.
The match for Ito and Harper had just two deuce points that came in games one and three. Stanford held serve on the first one, but the Texas duo broke on the second for a 2-1 lead. The rest of the match stayed on serve for the 6-4 win by the Longhorns. That once again left it in the hands of Bullard and Spizzirri in their match, which stayed on serve throughout including three deuce-point wins for them, leading to a tiebreaker. In that frame, Stanford took an early 2-0 lead, but the Texas pair answered with four-straight points, an advantage they would maintain and extend to 6-3 before finishing at 7-4.
"If anything, (doubles) was even better than yesterday," Berque said. "Our No. 3 team, which had never played together before this tournament, won all three of their matches and got the first win again. We lost at No. 1, but Jacob and Eliot – two true freshmen on the court – really played clutch. It was very similar to yesterday, and I was really happy. Jacob served extremely well and they executed the game plan in big moments, and that was a huge part of the match to win that doubles point."
Stanford evened the overall match at 1-1 with a 6-4, 6-4 singles win by No. 21 Alex Rotsaert over No. 12 Sigsgaard at No. 2. Rotsaert picked up a break in the opening game and kept that through the first set for the 6-4 win. He broke again to open the second set, but Sigsgaard later got it back and evened it, 3-3. Sigsgaard then took a 4-3 lead on serve, but Rotsaert took the final three games with the last two coming on deuce points.
Harper quickly regained the lead for Texas with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Kento Perera at No. 6. The first set stayed on serve starting with Perera all the way to 4-4 despite three deuce points, two of which were won by Perera. Harper then got the break he needed to take a 5-4 lead and held for the 6-4 win. He picked up a break much earlier in the second set to establish a 2-1 lead and then captured another at 4-1 on his way to a 5-1 advantage. Perera got one game back before Harper closed it at 6-2. The victory gave Harper a sweep of all six of his matches at the tournament, including three in singles and three in doubles.
The Cardinal was again able to even the score with a 6-4, 7-6 (4) win by Kolasinski over Bullard at No. 5. After Kolasinski grabbed the opening set, Bullard took a 4-1 lead in the second. However, Kolasinski recovered to tie it, 4-4, on a deuce point, and with it again even at 5-5, each player broke the other on a deuce point starting with Kolasinski to send it to a tiebreaker. Kolasinski took a 3-0 edge in that frame, but Bullard erased that with a 3-0 run of his own. Kolasinski briefly regained the lead before it was tied again at 4-4, but then took the last three points for the win.
That left three matches that all went to a third set, two of which had been led by Stanford after the opening set. The one that was not was at No. 4 where Huang secured the lead for Texas again with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over Rajesh. Deuce points were abundant in the first set. After the first four games stayed on serve, including one deuce for Huang for 2-1, all six of the remaining games were decided at deuce. Rajesh took to a 4-2 lead with the first two, but Huang came up clutch time and again by winning the final four with the last coming on a break. Rajesh won the only two deuce points of the second set, both on serve, as the whole frame stayed on serve to 4-4. Rajesh then broke and held to send it to a third set and posted a 2-1 lead there after breaking Huang on another deuce. Huang answered back with one of his own, and the players stayed on serve to a 4-3 lead in his favor when he captured another break and fittingly closed the match with another deuce point win.
Ito and Spizzirri recorded identical 3-6, 7-5 scores in their opening two sets, despite taking different routes to get there. After holds in the first three games between Ito and No. 16 Geller, starting with Ito, Geller collected a break for a 3-1 lead that he extended to 4-1 on serve. The rest of the set stayed on serve capped by a deuce-point win for Geller in the last game. In the second set, Gellar picked up a break in the opening game on a deuce point and then did it again to open a 5-2 lead, putting himself in a position to serve for the match. However, Ito would not fold and ran off five-straight games, including two deuce points – one to get within 5-4, and the other close the set at 7-5. The final frame stayed on serve up to a 4-3 lead for Ito when he captured a break and then held to clinch his comeback at 6-3. It was his 106th career singles win at Texas, putting him alone in sixth place all-time at UT. It was also his 11th top-25 victory out of the 31 wins in his last 35 matches.
Spizzirri's match with Sah at No. 3 was left unfinished with a chance for Spizzirri to serve for the win up 5-4. The first set stayed on serve up to 2-2 despite deuce points in the first two games, but Sah the gathered a break for a 3-2 lead and held for 4-2. The players shared another pair of deuce-point holds, but Sah's second break ended the set at 6-3. The second set was back and forth, but stayed within one game until Spizzirri got a break and a hold to take a 5-3 lead. Sah held and then broke to even it, however Spizzirri returned the favor with a break and a hold to close the set. In the third, Spizzirri again got a break and a hold that gave him a 4-2 lead with the rest of the games staying on serve to 5-4 when it was stopped.
The Longhorns will now have a week off from competition until they resume with a home doubleheader next Sunday at the Texas Tennis Center against Nebraska at 11 a.m. and UTSA at 3:30 p.m. In the following match, Texas and Stanford will square off again in Austin on Feb. 28.
No. 4 Texas 4, No. 8 Stanford 2
Singles – Order of Finish (2,6,5,4,1)
1. No. 2 Yuya Ito (UT) def. No. 16 Axel Geller (STAN), 3-6, 7-5, 6-3
2. No. 21 Alex Rotsaert (STAN) def. No. 12 Christian Sigsgaard (UT), 6-4, 6-4
3. Eliot Spizzirri (UT) vs. Timothy Sah (STAN), 3-6, 7-5, 5-4, unf.
4. Chih Chi Huang (UT) def. No. 98 Neel Rajesh (STAN), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3
5. Filip Kolasinski (STAN) def. Jacob Bullard (UT), 6-4, 7-6 (4)
6. Cleeve Harper (UT) def. Kento Perera (STAN), 6-4, 6-2
Doubles – Order of Finish (1,3,2)
1. Axel Geller/Neel Rajesh (STAN) def. Chih Chi Huang/Christian Sigsgaard (UT), 6-3
2. Jacob Bullard/Eliot Spizzirri (UT) def. Timothy Sah/Sangeet Sridhar (STAN), 7-6 (4)
3. Cleeve Harper/Yuya Ito (UT) def. Filip Kolasinski/Alex Rotsaert (STAN), 6-4
Players Mentioned
