Baylor makes program’s sixth appearance in national semifinals

ORLANDO, Fla. – No. 1-ranked and second-seeded Baylor men’s tennis defeated No. 7 TCU 4-1 Thursday afternoon at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla., to advance to the NCAA Semifinals.

The Bears (33-4) grinded out the doubles point and made a strong push in singles to put away the Horned Frogs (19-8) and book the program’s sixth trip to the Final Four and first since 2015.

It was TCU that struck first in doubles, as the No. 2-ranked duo of Alastair Gray/Luc Fomba held off No. 9 Constantin Frantzen/Sven Lah, 6-2, at the top spot. However, the Bears responded with a 6-3 victory on court two by No. 75 Matias Soto/Nick Stachowiak over Sander Jong/Tadeas Paroulek to put all eyes on the three’s.

With the opening tally up for grabs, Finn Bass/Charlie Broom saved a match point at deuce trailing 6-5 to send the contest to a tiebreaker. After a quick 3-0 start, the Bears battled out a 7-5 breaker to clinch the doubles point for BU.

On the singles courts, all six matches were tight from the start as TCU grabbed the early advantage on court one and court five. However, the Bears took first sets on two, three, four and six after Spencer Furman saved a handful of set points and rallied from down 5-2 to take his opener 7-5 over Bertus Kruger.

That’s when the Bears made their move, as Lah flew to a 6-3, 6-1 victory over No. 110 Jake Fearnley for Baylor’s second point. TCU got one back from Paroulek on court five as he defeated Broom 6-2, 6-4, but that proved to be the Horned Frogs only singles win.

No. 11 Soto took down the Big 12 Player of the Year and No. 17-ranked Fomba 6-4, 6-4 in the second spot to push the Bears one point closer, and it was Furman who clinched at 7-5, 6-1 after winning 11 of the last 12 games against Kruger at the No. 6 position.