The BYU men’s tennis team continued its winning streak this weekend, while the women’s tennis team suffered tough losses on the road.
The No. 51 BYU men’s tennis team (7-5), on a four-match winning streak, swept both Air Force and Denver on the road this weekend, making it the team’s third sweep in a row for the team.
The Falcons came out strong on Thursday and pushed the Cougars through long double matches, forcing two matches into tiebreakers, but the Cougars battled back and swept the doubles matches.
Taking to the courts for singles, however, the Cougars dominated the competition winning all matches in the first two set, but one. On court four, freshman Keaton Cullimore won the first set but then lost the second. He beat Alex Grubbs in the last set 6-3 to finish the BYU sweep over Air Force.
Friday, BYU came out on top over Denver after impressive come-from-behind wins on several courts.
BYU secured the doubles point on courts one and two as duos Georgy Batrakov and Patrick Kawka, and Spencer Smith and Francis defeated their opponents 8-6 and 8-4, respectively. Denver’s Yannick Weihs and Othar Kordsachia put up their team’s only match win of the night against Cullimore and Michael Eraso.
The Pioneers pushed the Cougars to third sets and tie-breaker situations in singles play on nearly every court. At one point BYU was down collectively 19 match points against Denver. The Cougars battled back to close each of these matches.
“I don’t think I’d ever experience that again if I were to coach for 100 years,” BYU coach Brad Pearce said in a news release. “They came back and won every single match. I couldn’t be more proud of them. I think it shows the fight, fortitude and resolve of our players.”
First off the court for the Cougars was Kawka in a 6-0, 5-7, 6-2 win over Jens Vorkefeld. Smith and Cullimore followed next, winning their matches each in the third set. For the second straight match, Cullimore’s win gave BYU the match win. Batrakov and Sargeant both battled back in their last sets to win in tiebreaker situations and Eraso cleaned up BYU’s sweep with 8-7 win over Alex Clinkenbeard.
The Cougars hope to extend their winning streak when they return to play at home Friday at 5:30 p.m. against Boise State on the indoor tennis courts. It is free admission and pizza will be served at the match.
The BYU women’s tennis team took two hard losses the weekend. The team traveled to Pullman, Wash., to take on Washington State and Idaho.
The top 40-ranked Washington State pulled a 7-0 sweep of BYU on Friday. BYU started out strong with Megan Price and Meghan Sheehan-Dizon getting off the courts first with a 8-4 win. But Washington State took the doubles point as Elisabeth Fournier and Charlotte Koning defeated BYU’s Desiree Tran and Morgan Anderson 8-6 and Elizaveta Luzina and Olga Musilovich defeated Aubrey Paul and Lisa Waldron 8-2.
In singles, Washington State took five singles matches in straight sets to put them up 6-0 over BYU. On court three, Anderson forced Andjela Kankaras into three sets but lost as Kankaras sealed Washington State’s sweep winning in a tiebreaker 6-2, 3-6, 7-6.
The women’s luck didn’t change the following day, falling to the Idaho Vandals 4-3.
The Vandal secured the doubles point as Tran and Anderson fell 8-5 and only after narrowly defeating Paul and Waldron in a tough 9-7 match. Doubles duo Price and Sheehan-Dizon put up an 8-1 win, this No. 1 position team hasn’t dropped a doubles match in the last five matches.
The Vandals put themselves up 3-0 over the Cougars quickly in singles play over Price and Anderson, each losing in straight sets. Sheehan-Dizon, pushing her match to three sets, gave the Cougars their first point of the day with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win over Sophie Vickers.
Idaho secured its victory on court one as Tran fell to Victoria Lozano in a tiebreaker second set 6-2, 7-5. As a result Idaho defaulted the last two singles matches to Paul and Waldron finishing the match to a 4-3 win over BYU.
“We didn’t come out ready to play this weekend,” BYU coach Lauren Jones-Spencer said after the match. “We had two tough losses this weekend, but we are going to get back up and work harder next week.”
The Cougars continue their month-long road trip with their next stop in Texas in hopes to improve on their season against a top ranked Texas A&M team and Rice University on Thursday and Friday.
