The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
05.11.2021 | Men's Tennis
The Longhorns captured Coach of the Year, Freshman of the Year, four All-Big 12 selections and two individual singles champions.
Austin, Texas – No. 4 Men's Tennis earned several Big 12 Men's Tennis postseason awards, including Bruce Berque as Coach of the Year, Micah Braswell unanimously as Freshman of the Year, four All-Big 12 selections with two of those as unanimous, and two individual singles champions, the conference announced Tuesday.
The All-Big 12 team honorees included unanimous first-team selections in sophomore Eliot Spizzirri in singles and the duo of Spizzirri and sophomore Siem Woldeab in doubles, along with two second-team honorees in singles in Braswell and Woldeab.
The conference also honored individual champions at each singles position based on record with Spizzirri (4-1 Big 12) sharing the honor at No. 1, and sophomore Cleeve Harper (3-1 Big 12) sharing it at No. 4.
Conference awards were not issued following the 2020 season, which was cut short by the pandemic prior to conference matches being played. Due to that, this is the second-straight time Berque has won the Coach of the Year award after doing so in 2019, and the ninth time overall it has been won by a Texas coach. It also makes it the first time Spizzirri, Woldeab and Harper have received honors, in addition to Braswell who is in his true freshman season. Braswell becomes the fifth Longhorn to be named Freshman of the Year with the last being Christian Sigsgaard in 2017.
Spizzirri is 23-9 overall in singles this season and 16-8 in dual matches, including six top-60 wins. Braswell has posted a stellar true freshman season with a 33-6 overall singles record, including an 18-5 mark in dual matches. He has played 11 of his last 12 matches at the No. 2 position and has beaten three ranked opponents in that stretch. Woldeab began the season playing at No. 1 singles, however missed five singles matches due to injury. He returned to the singles lineup and has won seven of his last eight decisions playing at No. 3, including two top-80 wins. Harper has won seven of his last eight decisions, including two over ranked opponents.
In doubles, Spizzirri and Woldeab have combined for a 20-9 overall record this season, including 13-9 in dual matches where they have played at the No. 1 position throughout. They have six top-15 wins with one over No. 3 Matej Vocel and Emile Hudd of Oklahoma State, two against No. 10 Sven Lah and Constantin Frantzen of Baylor, with one more when the Bears duo was ranked No. 19, one over No. 14 Wojcik and Rithvik Bollipalli of South Florida, one versus No. 8 Juan Carlos Aguilar and Bjorn Thomson of Texas A&M and one against No. 28 Nathan Han and Alex Martinez of Oklahoma. They also defeated Vocel and Hudd for a second time, although they were unranked at that time, along with coming up just short in a tiebreaker to No. 1 Daniel Cukierman and Riley Smith of USC.
Texas earned the No. 4 overall seed in the NCAA Team Championship and will face No. 13 South Carolina at 3 p.m. CT on Monday, May 17, in the Round of 16. The winner of that match will square off against the winner of No. 5 Virginia and No. 12 USC in the quarterfinals on Thursday, May 20, while the semifinals will be on Friday, May 21, and the finals on Saturday, May 22.
2021 Texas Big 12 Postseason Awards
Coach of the Year
Bruce Berque
Freshman of the Year
Micah Braswell*
All-Big 12 Team
Eliot Spizzirri, Singles First Team*
Micah Braswell, Singles Second Team
Siem Woldeab, Singles Second Team
Eliot Spizzirri/Siem Woldeab, Doubles First Team*
Individual Champions
Eliot Spizzirri, Co-No. 1 Singles
Cleeve Harper, Co-No. 4 Singles
*Unanimous
