The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Baylor
No. 5 Men’s Tennis falls to No. 4 Baylor, 4-0, at ITA Indoors
02.12.2021 | Men's Tennis
The Longhorns will next face No. 1 USC on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CT in the consolation bracket.
Champaign, Ill. – No. 5 Texas Men's Tennis fell to No. 4 Baylor, 4-0, in the opening round of the ITA National Team Indoor Championships on Friday in Champaign, Ill. The Longhorns will now head to the consolation bracket where they will face No. 1 USC on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CT.
Texas opened the match narrowly missing out on winning the doubles point after only falling in a tiebreaker of the third match at No. 3. Sophomores Eliot Spizzirri and Siem Woldeab got things started at No. 1 by downing the No. 10 pair in the country of Constantin Frantzen and Sven Lah for the second time in two weeks, both times by a 6-4 score. The match stayed on serve all the way to the last when the Longhorns picked up a break in the final game.
Senior Payton Holden and junior Chih Chi Huang fell by the same score at No. 2 to Charlie Broom and Matias Soto in a match where the Bears won two out of three deuce points. That left No. 3 as the decider for the point. There, freshman Micah Braswell and sophomore Cleeve Harper earned two match points against Spencer Furman and Nick Stachowiak, one on a deuce point up, 5-4, and another during the tiebreaker leading, 7-6, but came up just short after Baylor claimed the final three points for a 7-6 (7) win and a 1-0 lead.
The Longhorns started slowly in singles and began to rally late, but not quickly enough before Baylor was able to close on three matches at Nos. 6, 5 and 1. When play stopped, No. 78 Braswell was leading in his third set against No. 43 Sven Lah, 2-6, 6-2, 3-2, at No. 3. After dropping an opening set in which he was down 3-0 and lost three out of the last four games on deuce points, Braswell turned it around with an early break in the first game of the second set and then held for a 2-0 lead. Lah then held in his next two service games to trail 3-2, but Braswell mounted a 3-0 run to finish the frame and send it to a third.
No. 120 Spizzirri and Harper were also leading their second sets when play stopped after both fell in first-set tiebreakers. Spizzirri used a 3-0 run in his first set against No. 56 Soto at No. 2 to take a 5-2 lead, but Soto answered with a 4-0 run of his own for a 6-5 edge. Spizzirri broke Soto's serve to tie it, 6-6, but in the tiebreaker, Soto used a 3-0 run to a take a 3-1 lead, and later a 4-0 run to win it, 7-3. Like Braswell, Spizzirri had turned things around in the second set with leads of 2-0, 3-1 and finally 5-2 when play finished.
At No. 4, Harper and No. 74 Stachowiak traded breaks on deuce points in their opening set, first giving a Harper a lead of 2-0 and then 2-1. From there, the set stayed on serve to 5-5 when Stachowiak earned a break for the lead, but Harper answered it to send it to the tiebreaker. In that frame, Harper had a 4-1 lead and a set point at 6-5, but Stachowiak was able to fend it off on his way to taking the final three points. Harper then led the second set, 2-1, at the finish.
In the previous matches, Baylor used wins by Furman over sophomore Evin McDonald at No. 6 (6-2, 6-3), No. 103 Broom over Huang at No. 5 (6-3, 6-4), and No. 46 Adrian Boitan over No. 57 Woldeab at No. 1 (6-3, 7-5) to earn the overall win. Huang and Woldeab had second-set leads of 4-1 and 3-1, respectively, before eventually falling.
#4 Baylor 4, #5 Texas 0
Singles – Order of Finish (6,5,1)
1. #46 Adrian Boitan (BU) def. #57 Siem Woldeab (UT) 6-3, 7-5
2. #56 Matias Soto (BU) vs. #120 Eliot Spizzirri (UT) 7-6 (3), 2-5, unf.
3. #43 Sven Lah (BU) vs. #78 Micah Braswell (UT) 6-2, 2-6, 2-3, unf.
4. #74 Nick Stachowiak (BU) vs. Cleeve Harper (UT) 7-6 (6), 1-2, unf.
5. #103 Charlie Broom (BU) def. Chih Chi Huang (UT) 6-3, 6-4
6. Spencer Furman (BU) def. Evin McDonald (UT) 6-2, 6-3
Doubles – Order of Finish (1,2,3)
1. Eliot Spizzirri/Siem Woldeab (UT) def. #10 Sven Lah/Constantin Frantzen (BU) 6-4
2. Matias Soto/Charlie Broom (BU) def. Payton Holden/Chih Chi Huang (UT) 6-4
3. Nick Stachowiak/Spencer Furman (BU) def. Micah Braswell/Cleeve Harper (UT) 7-6 (7)
Players Mentioned
