Men’s Tennis: Frogs fall in Final Four

TCU Men’s Tennis had an incredible standout season, arguably the best in program history, spending much of the year as the number one team in the land while earning the ITA Indoor National Championship and the Big 12 Tournament Championship. However the dream season came to a close on Saturday as the 2-seed Horned Frogs dropped its Semifinal contest to 3-seed Ohio State.

Similar to Friday’s Quarterfinals match with Michigan, TCU found itself trailing early, dropping the Doubles point in a dramatic battle. The Sander Jong / Lui Maxted combo opened the party with a 6-4 set win over OSU’s Tracy/Kingsley pair, but the Buckeyes quickly evened things up by taking down TCU’s Jake Fearnley / Luc Fomba 6-3 on Court 1. This left the critical opening point in the balance at Court 2 as TCU’s Sebastian Gorzny / Pedro Vives fought back to force a tiebreaker with 16th ranked pair of James Trotter / Andrew Lutschaunig. However the Ohio State pairing emerged with the Doubles point after jumping to a lead in the tiebreaker and hanging on for a 7-6 (7-5) set win to give OSU the 1-0 lead.

TCU got outclassed in the Singles portion of the competition as Ohio State swiftly earned straight-set wins from Courts 1 & 6, topping TCU’s Maxted 6-2, 6-2 and #21 Fearnley 6-3, 6-4 to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the contest and put the Frogs at the brink of elimination. However the Frogs were not leaving Orlando without a fight. TCU logged opening set wins from #17 Luc Fomba, #71 Jack Pinnington, and #62 Sander Jong; each were fighting in second sets when the match went final. The decisive point came from Court 5 as TCU’s #92 Sebastian Gorzny was matched against #41 Alexander Bernard, but had his serve broken in each set, falling 6-4, 6-4 to seal the victory for the Buckeyes.

While the Team season is now complete, several Horned Frogs will remain in Orlando for the individual Singles and Doubles Tournaments beginning Monday May 22. In Singles, Luc Fomba has an opening round contest versus #2 overall seed Ethan Quinn of Georgia; Quinn lost his match vs. TCU’s Jake Fearnley 7-6 (7-1), 6-3 when the Frogs and Bulldogs faced off in the ITA Indoor Tournament in February. Fearnley is on the other side of the Singles bracket - potentially setting up an all Horned Frog final; his first round opponent is #27-ranked Yuta Kikuchi of Cal-Berkeley.

Fearnley & Fomba will also compete together in the Doubles Tournament, beginning Tuesday May 23. The Horned Frog combo is the #2 overall seed and will take on the #26-ranked pairing Sebastian Dominko and Connor Fu of Notre Dame.