By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
Alexandru Chirita was down 2-0 in the third set of a heated battle on Court Four. The graduate stormed back to lead 3-2 with a pair of breaks, then found himself up 5-4 with match point.
All eyes were on him and his opponent.
“I was locked in. I couldn’t hear anything around me,” Chirita said. “I wasn’t sure if it was 3-1 for us until I saw the scoreboard at deuce, match point for me.”
He lasered a ball to the right corner that met the back wall. His teammates rushed over to mob him with the roar of the Monday night crowd.
“That gave me a little bit of pressure,” Chirita said. “But I’m always playing big in the big moments.”
His victory sealed the upset for Baylor (5-2), which marked its first ranked win of the season in the 4-1 win over No. 8 Texas A&M (6-1) on Monday night.
The Bears previously fell to No. 8 San Diego and No. 4 TCU earlier in the season.
Chirita and senior Zsombor Velcz started off the match with a dominant performance in doubles. The pair cruised to a 6-2 victory on Court Two.
“I’m always comfortable to play with him on the court,” Chirita said of Velcz. “I can say that he’s carrying me sometimes, but he’s one of my best friends out here.”
Junior Devin Badenhorst and senior Luc Koenig did not fare so well. The duo was no match for Texas A&M’s Theo Papamalamis and Togan Tokac, who won 6-1. The Aggies secured the doubles point on Court Three, defeating junior Connor Van Schalkwyk and freshman Blake Anderson despite the Bears jumping out to a 2-0 lead.
“Doubles was a bit of a tough one because we weren’t playing bad, it’s just that the two double faults from us on both deuce points was a tough one to take,” Koenig said. “They were returning good, so you’ve got to give a little bit of credit to them.”
Baylor started to turn the tables in singles. The Bears won the first set in all six matches, capped off by Badenhorst’s 7-5 victory that was welcomed by the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center crowd.
“It’s been something that we’ve been talking about with the boys,” Koenig said. “We lose the doubles point, something bad happens, what are we going to do when it happens? And we responded unbelievably in the singles.”
Texas A&M was not going to go away without a fight. Tokac ignited the Aggies’ rallies with a dominant 6-1 second set to send Court Five to a third set. Courts One, Four and Six followed behind.
“We’ve got to reset and recenter on the things that made us successful at the beginning,” head coach Michael Woodson said.
Velcz was the first Bear to get the job done in two sets, winning 6-4, 6-4 to give his team its first point.
Koenig took care of business on Court Five, giving Baylor a 2-1 lead with a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 victory. Van Schalkwyk added to the Bears’ total with 6-4, 7-6 (3) win.
Baylor hopes to gain momentum with the upset.
“They know they have the level, and we all know we’re a really good team,” Woodson said. “To get the win, it gives them that confidence that, ‘Hey, when we get into these dog fights … they’re all going to be really close.’”
The Bears’ win propels them toward a difficult upcoming schedule, with ITA National Indoor Championships running Feb. 13-15 at Hawkins Indoor and a trip to face No. 3 Wake Forest set for Feb. 22.
