The No. 45 BYU men’s tennis team lost its second match of the weekend, falling this time to No. 39 Minnesota, 4-0, in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Kick-Off Weekend at the Hilary J. Boone Varsity Tennis Center in Lexington, Ky. on January 25.
Even with the return of the BYU team captain, Francis Sargeant, the cougars struggled to out-play the Golden Gophers.
“We had an opportunity to get the doubles point against a very physical team,” BYU head coach Brad Pearce said. “There is no question that that would have helped our momentum going into singles.”
Sargeant and Sterling Galli lost their doubles match 6-2. However, The Cougars were still in position to take the doubles points after Andrey Goryachkov and Jeremy Bourgeois defeated gophers Leandro Toledo and Eric Frueh, 6-3.
Freshmen Matthew Pearce and Jacob Sullivan fought a hard match against Gophers Juan Pablo Ramirez and Franz Sydow. However, the Gophers won the match in tiebreakers 6-5 (2) and took the doubles points.
In singles play, Sargeant lost his first match of the season 5-4, 6-1 against Leandro Toledo.
Bourgeois lost to Jack Hamburg 6-2, 6-2, while Goryachkov battled in a close loss to Ruben Weber 6-5 (3), 6-2.
“They gave no ground during singles play with the wind at their backs and just beat us,” Pearce said. “We’re a very young team and I’m pleased that we’re 4-2 on the season, but this weekend showed that we need to keep working hard and improving to keep an elite team. We’re looking forward to returning home and getting back to work in preparation for Air Force and Denver, our regional rivals.”
The team plays on the road again at Air Force, Friday at 9:30 MST. The next day they square off against Denver at 4 p.m.
