Men’s Tennis: TCU advances to national Semifinal with 4-1 win over Michigan

De ja vu all over again, as the Michigan Wolverines are making a habit of being eliminated from post season contention at the hands of the Horned Frogs. Although TCU fell into an early deficit, the Frogs fought to earn four consecutive points through Singles play to down the #7 overall seed Wolverines and advance to the NCAA Tournament Semifinals for the fifth time in program history and career win number 250 for TCU coach David Roditi.

The Frogs fell behind in the Doubles point early as TCU’s No. 22 ranked pairing of Sander Jong and Lui Maxted was quickly upset 6-2 on Court 3. The Frogs didn’t simply concede the point as the other two sets went into 6-6 tiebreaker battles, with Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives ultimately dropped the set 7-6 (7-5) while the Court 1 headline battle between the #2 Jake Fearnley / Luc Fomba combo and #7 Andrew Fenty / Gavin Young of Michigan went unfinished.

TCU awoke from its slumber midway through the opening sets of Singles play. Only two of the six opening sets were decided without requiring a seventh game: Lui Maxted bounced back from the Doubles loss to take the first set 6-4 from Jacob Bickersteth on Court 6 and Michigan’s top Singles performer #8 Ondrej Styler took the first set from #21 Jake Fearnley. The other four Courts featured high level high pressure tennis and the Frogs had ice in their veins in the critical moments before then taking over in the second set. #17 Fomba returned to singles play for the first time in the 2023 NCAA Tournament and earned a 7-5, 6-3 win over #44 Patrick Maloney to even the overall score. Sander Jong, Jack Pinnington, and Sebastian Gorzny each forced opening set tiebrakers and emerged victorious, breaking the will of their opponents as they each dominated second sets. Jong finished off Nino Ehrenschneider 7-6 (7-4), 6-1; JPJ with a huge win over one the nation’s best #20 Andrew Fenty 7-6 (7-4), 6-1; and Gorzny slammed the door shut on the contest with a 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 win over #63 Gavin Young.

TCU will face #3 Ohio State in the Final Four at 11 AM on Saturday May 19, with the winner advancing to Sunday’s National Championship against either #1 Texas Longhorns or defending champions #5 Virginia Cavaliers.