No. 4 Men's Tennis Extends Win Streak to Five with 6-1 Victory at No. 48 SMU
DALLAS – No. 4 Baylor men’s tennis collected its third win of the season over No. 48 SMU on Sunday, taking a 6-1 decision in Dallas at the SMU Tennis Complex.
The Bears (21-3) extended their win streak to five, marking their fourth streak of the season of at least five in a row.
The Mustangs (13-11) stole the opening doubles point after Caleb Chakravarthi/Jan-Simon Vrbsky outlasted No. 51 Matias Soto/Nick Stachowiak 7-5 on court two, following a BU-SMU split on the other two courts. SMU’s Huntley Allen/Julian Steinhausen were first off after defeating Finn Bass/Charlie Broom 6-3 on three, but No. 22 Constantin Frantzen/Sven Lah won 6-4 against No. 63 Juan Jose Bianchi/Tomas Vaise in the top spot.
Once singles got underway, the Bears responded with five first-set wins and quickly got back on the board. Ryan Dickerson finished first on court six, winning 6-3, 6-1 over Allen before Broom defeated Vrbsky by the same score on court four.
Lah pushed BU closer to the match win with a 6-3, 6-1 victory on three against Clarke Wilson, and Soto was the clincher on court two, garnering a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 win over Liam Krall.
Spencer Furman kept it going at No. 5 singles, winning 6-4, 6-4 over Steinhausen, and No. 90 Adrian Boitan pulled off a solid comeback against Chakravarthi in three sets, 1-6, 7-6(3), 1-0(5).
HIGHLIGHTS
• Baylor improved to 21-3 on the season, including an 8-3 mark against ranked opponents.
• BU fell to 18-6 in the doubles point this season, but the Bears are now 4-2 in matches when losing the opening tally.
• Baylor now holds a combined 105-17 record this season in singles action and a 46-19 mark in doubles.
• Constantin Frantzen earned the 101st doubles win of his career, moving him into sole possession of third place on Baylor’s all-time leaderboard. The fifth-year senior sits just three wins behind Benjamin Becker’s school record 104.
• Ryan Dickerson improved to a perfect 10-0 this season with his straight-set win on court six. He now has two wins at every position, two through six.
STAT OF THE MATCH
6 – Baylor stormed back after dropping the doubles point to collect all six singles victories
TOP QUOTES
Interim head coach Michael Woodson
Thoughts on today’s match…
“SMU pushed us. We control of the doubles point for a while, but just let it slip. The margins were small and they got the better of us right at the end. But I thought we did a really nice job of just buckling down and getting to work in singles. We really just showed our class in several situations early and continued to put pressure on SMU. I felt like we did a really nice job of taking control of the match in singles and taking all six of them was very impressive.”
WHAT’S NEXT
Baylor (21-3) remains on the road to open up Big 12 play at No. 18 Oklahoma State on Thursday in Stillwater, Okla., with first serve set for 5 p.m. CT at the Greenwood Tennis Center.