Austin, Texas – The No. 3 Texas Men's Tennis team completed a sweep of its doubleheader with a 6-1 win over Rice on Sunday at the Texas Tennis Center. The Longhorns downed Tulsa by the same score earlier in the day.
In this match, Rice was able to win the doubles point, however Texas responded with a sweep of the singles matches, including seniors No. 2 Yuya Ito at No. 1 and No. 6 Christian Sigsgaard at No. 2, along with freshmen Eliot Spizzirri at No. 3, No. 44 Siem Woldeab at No. 4 and Cleeve Harper at No. 6, plus sophomore Chih Chi Huang at No. 5.
"There were definitely a lot of positives," head coach Bruce Berque said. "I think as coaches sometimes in your mind you think more about the shortcomings and how to fix them, but when I look back at the scores of the day, we won both matches, 6-1, and those are two pretty good teams to be playing on the same day. I've got to take that as a positive, and I think there were a lot of those today. Eliot's performance was one, I think Christian and Yuya did a really good job especially in the second match, Siem turned it around at the end and won that last match, so there were a lot of positives. To beat two good teams on the same day, I'll take it every day of the week, but we'll look at the areas where we fell short with the most obvious being doubles against Rice and see what we can do to make a jump and be ready for Columbia on Saturday."
After not playing against Tulsa, Harper jumped in against Rice and posted an efficient 6-1, 6-1 win over Conrad Russell to quickly even the overall score at 1-1. He won the first five games of the first set and the first four games of the second, including two deuce points, and only surrendered two total games, one of which was a deuce, to take the victory.
Spizzirri was almost as efficient in his with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Campbell Salmon. In fact, after he lost the first two games of the match on deuce points and fell behind 3-1, he ran off 11-straight games, only two of which went to deuce, to give Texas a 2-1 lead. Spizzirri is now 11-1 in dual match singles play this season.
Just behind Spizzirri, Sigsgaard defeated Jacob Eskeland, 6-3, 6-1, to capture his 105th career singles victory at Texas, which ties him for seventh all-time at UT. Earlier in the day against Tulsa, he had moved up from 12th into a tie for 10th. The first set was on serve starting with Eskeland up to 3-3 when Sigsgaard earned a break on a deuce point to take the lead. That was the first of six-straight games for him to register a 3-0 lead in the second. Eskeland got one game back on serve, but Sigsgaard closed it out with a 3-0 run to put Texas up 3-1.
Ito was next with the clincher against Sumit Sarkar, 6-3, 6-4. Ito's two singles wins today put him at 111 for his career and alone in fifth all-time at UT after having been tied for that spot entering the day. The first set opened on serve up to a 3-2 lead for Ito that he took with a deuce point. He then broke and held on another deuce to move out to 5-2 before Sarkar got one more game on serve, and Ito held to close the frame. Ito broke and held to open the second set with a 2-0 lead, but Sarkar was able to go on a 4-0 run, the last three of which were on deuce points. However, those would be the last games he would win as Ito answered with a 4-0 run of his own for the victory and a 4-1 Texas lead.
The match at No. 4 was the lone contest to go to a third set with Woldeab rebounding from a first-set defeat to record a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Karol Paluch. Paluch controlled the first set winning all three deuce points. However, the tide began to turn in the second set, which stayed on serve starting with Paluch all the way to 4-4 when Woldeab got the break he needed and then held to send it to a third. That frame also stayed on serve up to 3-3, but Woldeab struck two games earlier for his break, then held and closed with another break for the win to extend to 5-1 for the Longhorns.
The final match finished after that despite only last two sets, however it did involve a tiebreaker in the first as Huang downed Eric Rutledge, 7-6 (3), 6-3. That first set stayed on serve the whole way with Huang fending off two set points both on serve at deuce. Those evened the score at 5-5 and 6-6, forcing the tiebreaker that Huang captured by running off four-straight points after it was tied, 3-3. Huang controlled the second set by grabbing a break for a 3-1 lead that he expanded to 4-1 on serve. The rest of the frame also stayed on serve to the 6-3 decision and a 6-1 final for Texas.
Earlier, Rice had taken a 1-0 lead after winning the doubles point, however Spizzirri and Woldeab had been first off the court with a 6-1 win over Paluch and Salmon at No. 2. The Longhorns won the first three games, including a break in the second game and a deuce-point win the third. Rice took its only game on serve to make it 3-1, but Spizzirri and Woldeab finished it on a 3-0 run for the win.
The other two matches both ended at 6-3 in favor of the Owls. Ito and Sigsgaard fell to Russell and Sarkar at No. 1 after Rice won all five deuce points in the match, including four out of the first five games. At No. 3, Harper and Huang faced Rutledge and Wes Barnett, and the Owls got a deuce-point break in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. It stayed on serve up to a 5-3 lead for Rice when Russell and Sarkar grabbed another break to win the match and the point.
The Longhorns will have the week off before hosting another top-10 match as No. 9 Columbia visits the Texas Tennis Center at 12 p.m. CT on Saturday, Mar. 14.
No. 3 Texas 6, Rice 1
Singles – Order of Finish (6,3,2,1,4,5)
1. No. 2 Yuya Ito (UT) def. Sumit Sarkar (RICE), 6-3, 6-4
2. No. 6 Christian Sigsgaard (UT) def. Jacob Eskeland (RICE), 6-3, 6-1
3. Eliot Spizzirri (UT) def. Campbell Salmon (RICE), 6-3, 6-0
4. No. 44 Siem Woldeab (UT) def. Karol Paluch (RICE), 1-6, 6-4, 6-3
5. Chih Chi Huang (UT) def. Eric Rutledge (RICE), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3
6. Cleeve Harper (UT) def. Conrad Russell (RICE), 6-1, 6-1
Doubles – Order of Finish (2,1,3)
1. Sumit Sarkar/Conrad Russell (RICE) def. No. 9 Christian Sigsgaard/Yuya Ito (UT), 6-3
2. Eliot Spizzirri/Siem Woldeab (UT) def. Campbell Salmon/Karol Paluch (RICE), 6-1
3. Eric Rutledge/Wes Barnett (RICE) def. Chih Chi Huang/Cleeve Harper (UT), 6-3