Tennis team wins third straight
The Utah State men’s tennis team won its third-straight match Tuesday, as it defeated Idaho State 4-3 at the Sports Academy.
The Aggie men won the match in their singles play. Four of the six singles matches were won by the Ags to overcome the doubles point taken by Idaho State.
“We’ve had a good rivalry over the years,” Utah State Head Coach Christian Wright said, talking about Idaho State. “After losing the doubles point I thought it was a great job with a lot of desire to get it done.”
Five of the Aggies’ singles players won their first sets and four of them went on to win their second to take straight set wins and give the Aggies the match.
Joao Pinho won 6-1, 6-2 in the No. 1 singles spot handily defeating Idaho State’s Ivan Moferdin. Roshan Rasekhi won 6-4, 6-2 in the closest Aggie win of the day. Brad Ferguson won 6-4, 6-1 and Dantley Young won 6-2, 7-6.
Hannes Schenk, the other Aggie to win his first set at No. 2 singles, lost his second set 6-1 and then in a close third set he lost 6-4 after being up 3-2. In his first set Schenk was down on the serve 4-3, but broke to take the 5-4 lead and won on his serve 6-4.
There was some wind that seemed to disrupt a few shots of some of the players but it wasn’t a major factor Wright said.
“If you move well enough the wind isn’t a problem,” he said. “I didn’t hear any complaints on our side we just went out and played tennis. It was a good team win.”
Along with Schenk’s back-and-forth match all three doubles matches were close.
No. 3 doubles won 8-5 but the two other doubles were close heading into the final games.
No. 1 doubles was up 6-5 but lost three of the next four to lose 8-6. In No. 2 the opposite happened as the pair was down 6-5 and 7-6 but tied it up before losing in the tiebreaker to give Idaho State the doubles point.
The close matches were good tune-ups for the conference tournament coming up in a few weeks, Wright said.
“You never really could pull away they’re both good enough players,” Wright said of Schenk and Marc Pijoan of Idaho State. “You just can’t get too down if you’re behind and you can’t get too elated if you have the lead. You just have to play every point the same.”
The Aggies will take on Weber State in Ogden, Wednesday, going for their fourth-straight win. The last match between the two teams Utah State won 6-1.
“We played well against Weber last time,” Wright said. “We had good intensity and we hope to have it again.”
-krn@cc.usu.edu