Men’s Tennis Fights But Falls at #1 Texas

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men’s tennis team showed great fight but fell, 7-0, to the #1 Texas Longhorns Wednesday at the Texas Tennis Center.

Texas (3-0) claimed the 1-0 advantage after a pair of 6-0 wins on the first and second doubles courts. UTRGV’s No. 3 duo of sophomore Will Roberts and freshman Eduardo Menezes played hard, going back-and-forth with the Longhorns to a 4-4 tie. When the Texas duo took the 5-4 lead, Roberts/Menezes was sharp with the match on the line, holding strong against the serve to even things up again at 5-5. The Vaqueros stopped Texas on six break points in the match, but the Longhorns took the 7-5 win.

Texas secured the team victory with singles wins on the first, fourth and third courts. UTRGV was competing against the #2 ranked singles player, Sebastian Gorzny, on Court 1 and the #20 ranked singles player, Jonah Braswell, in the third spot.

UTRGV showed loads of potential going up against the top team in the nation. Redshirt junior Sam Whitehead picked up a dominant 6-1 win in the first set of his No. 2 match against Pierre-Yves Bailly, the most outstanding player of the 2024 Big 12 Championship. Whitehead went toe-to-toe with Bailly in the second set, coming up big on deciding points to take a 3-1 lead then using a tough serve to force a miss to get things evened up at 4-4 after a response. Bailly held on to take the set, 6-4, to force a 10-point tiebreaker in the third. Bailly opened up a 5:1 lead in the tiebreaker before Whitehead went on a run to get within two points, but the UTRGV team captain fell, 10:4.

Sophomore Paolo Bonaguro also put up a good battle on Court 6. After falling behind 2-4 in the first set, he tied things up at 4-all, but Texas’ Rahul Sachdev held on to take the set, 6-4. Sachdev opened up 5-0 lead in the second before Bonaguro turned things around and captured a pair of games, but Sachdev took the straight-set win to complete the Texas sweep.

UTRGV (0-1) will be back in action Saturday at 11 a.m. at Rice.

UTRGV Results

Doubles (2, 1, 3) 

1. Sebastian Gorzny/Pierre-Yves Bailly (TEX) def. Sam Whitehead/Paolo Bonaguro(UTRGV) 6-0
   2. Oliver Ojakaar/Sebastian Eriksson (TEX) def. Ivo Isqueiro/Santiago Serrano(UTRGV) 6-0
   3. Jonah Braswell/Rahul Sachdev (TEX) def. Will Roberts/Eduardo Menezes (UTRGV) 7-5

Singles (1, 4, 3, 5, 6, 2) 

1. #2 Sebastian Gorzny (TEX) def. Ivo Isqueiro(UTRGV) 6-2, 6-1
   2. Pierre-Yves Bailly (TEX) def. Sam Whitehead(UTRGV) 1-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10:4)
   3. #20 Jonah Braswell (TEX) def. Santiago Serrano (UTRGV) 6-0, 6-2
   4. Oliver Ojakaar (TEX) def. Loic Young Kriegel (UTRGV) 6-1, 6-1
   5. Sebastian Eriksson (TEX) def. Will Roberts (UTRGV) 6-2, 6-1
   6. Rahul Sachdev (TEX) def. Paolo Bonaguro (UTRGV) 6-4, 6-2