Men’s Tennis: TCU tops Baylor & Texas Tech

Thursday was Senior Night in Fort Worth for No. 2 TCU Men’s Tennis, the last regular season contest on the Purple Courts for fifth-year Seniors Luc Fomba and Sander Jong, each once again showing why they are among the best to ever play at TCU while leading the Horned Frogs to a 4-0 sweep of No. 41 Baylor Bears.

The Senior stars shined during the doubles point, each taking a set to secure the 1-0 advantage. Fomba with doubles partner Jake Fearnley are the No. 4 ranked pairing in the sport took on Baylor’s top team, the 20th ranked pairing of Finn Bass and Juampi Mazzuchi. For the third time this season Fearnley/Fomba defeated Bass/Mazzuchi, this time with a 6-3 set win. TCU dropped the 2nd doubles set as the Sebastian Gorzny Pedro Vives par fell 3-6. This left the doubles point in the very capable hands of No. 11 pair Sander Jong and Lui Maxted as they took the set 6-4 to give TCU the 1-0 lead

That would be as close as the Bears would get to picking up a point, as TCU dominated singles play. Pedro Vives, who is somehow still not ranked, quickly cleared out his opponent on Court 6, winning 6-2, 6-0. Then it was the Senior Frogs taking home the team victory with Fomba earning a 6-3, 6-1 win and Jong closing it with a 6-3, 6-0 straight set win to lock up the 4-0 sweep. Fearnley, Jack Pinnington, and Gorzny each won their first set, but were left unfinished.

The Frogs had a quick turnaround with a road trip to Lubbock for a showdown with No. 37 Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon, and it proved to be a tough battle. The contest opened with an intense doubles point, as TCU’s top ranked player Jake Fearnley took a rest for the the trip to the desert, forcing the Frogs to mix up its doubles pairings, instead putting Luc Fomba with Lui Maxted. Each is a member of a highly ranked double pairing, but had only competed together once before. Despite the inexperience together, Fomba/Maxted dominated the Red Raiders’ top-ranked pairing No. 77 Pawlak/Ribero 6-1. The other two doubles sets both went into tie-breakers with Gorzny/Vives fell to #80 Azoidis/Collier 6-7 (1-7) to push the point to 1-1. The No. 76 pairing of Sander Jong and Jack Pinnington was on the ropes at several moments during the set, including overcoming multiple Red Raider match point opportunities and falling behind 4-6 in the tiebreaker before storming back for four straight points to take the set 7-6 (8-6).

With Fearnley also unavailable for Singles, the court lineup required a shake up and had the Frogs on the back foot a bit out of the gate as TCU dropped four of the six opening sets. The two Frogs that did win that opening set went on to take straight set victories: Pedro Vives (rank him you cowards!) won 6-2, 6-4 and No. 63 Gorzny fought for a 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 win to put TCU ahead 3-0. No. 73 Pinnington got thrown into the Court 1 spot filling in for Fearnley and suffered a straight set defeat at the hands of TTU’s lone ranked singles player, No. 58 Olle Wallin, 2-6, 5-7 to narrow the TCU lead to 3-1. While Fomba and Jong were each in third set battles after having won 2nd set tiebreakers, Lui Maxted emerged victorious in his third set from Court 6, to earn the decisive fourth point for the Frogs taking a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 win.

With the two wins, TCU improved to 20-1 overall on the season and 4-0 in the Big 12. Next on the schedule is the season finale in Austin against the top ranked Texas Longhorns on Saturday April 15 at 7PM . The Horned Frogs have split the two contests with the ‘Horns this season, winning in the ITA Indoor National Championship final and losing in a “non-conference” match in Fort Worth. The rubber match will be to determine the Big 12 regular season champion and the top seed in the Big 12 Tournament. As the top two teams in the National rankings, the marquee matchup will go a long way to determine which squad is the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament