By Aidan O’Connor | Sports Writer, Aidan Pham | Broadcast Sports Reporter
After a 90-minute delay, Baylor men’s tennis faced off against No. 1 TCU Friday night inside the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Facility, ultimately losing 4-1.
LTVN’s Aidan Pham recaps men’s tennis’ bout with No. 1 TCU.
The start of the night would be a mixed bag for the Bears (6-5). In doubles, the South African tandem of sophomore Devin Badenhorst and junior Luc Koenig would start off 3-0, while junior Zsombor Velcz and graduate student Alexandru Chirita fell behind 0-2. Koenig and Badenhorst kept their momentum going and won the first doubles match 6-3. Shortly after, the senior duo of Oskar Brostrom Paulsen and Marko Miladinovic fell 6-3 despite a great late-game effort from Miladinovic, who sacrificed his body diving through the air to get a ball and prolong their match.
Eyes then shifted to Court Three, where Chirita and Velcz stormed back to tie their match at 4-4. However, their resurgence was short-lived as they dropped the next two games and ultimately lost 6-4. TCU (6-0) secured the doubles point and carried a 1-0 lead into singles play.
“I think we didn’t do a great job in the doubles and that kind of carried into the singles with a really slow start on a few courts,” head coach Michael Woodson said.
Baylor quickly responded in singles play, as Miladinovic dominated his opponent 6-1, 6-0 to secure the Bears’ first point. However, slow starts on other courts shifted momentum back to the Horned Frogs, as No. 9 senior Lui Maxted claimed Court Three 6-2, 7-5. With TCU leading 2-1 and holding a one-set advantage on every remaining court, the Horned Frogs appeared in full control.
“If it doesn’t go your way, you try to get closer to winning the second set,” Woodson said. “I think, for the most part, that happened, and we were able to build as the match went on. I just think we got off to a little bit of a slow start and then, we got down a break on all three courts in the third set and that’s not good enough, so it’s too big of a mountain to climb against a team like this.”
Momentum suddenly changed when Chirita, down a set and facing match point, stormed back to force a second-set tiebreaker. While Chirita was up 6-2 in the breaker, his opponent grew frustrated, throwing his racket on the ground and kicking the wall behind him. This frustration spread like a virus throughout the rest of the facility as Baylor fought back and won their second set on four courts. This success, just like earlier, would not last long as Baylor would lose on Court Four 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 and Brostrom Poulsen would fall on Court 2 7-6(6), 7-5 ending his perfect record in singles play this spring.
“I think that as these matches wear on, we’re having some similar issues, whether it’s court positioning, commitment to our game styles at the business end of sets and just an overall competitive fire when the chips are down,” Woodson said. “I think that’s something we’ve got to learn from and at some point, we’re going to have to make a shift, otherwise we’re gonna have a tough time against the top two, three teams in the country.”
The loss to TCU marks another defeat against a top-ranked team, as the Bears are now 0-5 on the season against ranked opponents. With No. 7 Duke up next on Saturday, the green and gold will need to regroup in hopes of making a deep consolation run and snapping their losing streak against ranked teams.
Baylor will be back in action against Duke on Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. inside the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Facility.
