Utah State fares well at tourney
Despite little preparation time and a rained-out practice the day before, Utah State Hea Coach Christian Wright and his Utah State men’s tennis team won three first-round singles matches as well as one doubles match at the ITA men’s regional tournament this past weekend in Las Vegas.
“The day we got down there, it was completely soaked, so nobody got to hit,” Wright said, adding that he was pleased with his team’s improvement.
Leading the way for the Aggies once again was senior Joao Pinho and junior Dantley Young.
Aggies Pinho, Young, along with sophomore Jonas Tyden, all won their first round matches in the main draw before losing in the second round.
They then competed in the consolation bracket where they had most of their success.
Young advanced to the third round before losing to 25th-seed Dominik Kaufhold of BYU, 6-1; 6-4. Tyden lost his only consolation match to Justin Lau of Air Force, 7-6; 6-2.
Pinho, who recorded perhaps the best results for the Aggies, won three consecutive consolation matches, two of them against seeded opponents, and advanced to a consolation fourth round qualifier match, which he lost to Kaufhold of BYU, 7-6; 6-1.
Also competing in singles for the Aggies were J.J. Netto, junior Lukas Bouton and freshmen Michael Banks and Bryan Merchant.
All four lost in the first round of the main draw and were winless in the consolation bracket as well.
In doubles action, the Aggies had three teams competing. However, only the team of Pinho and Netto recorded a win.
They won their main-draw first-round match against Northern Arizona’s Brian Grooms and Kyle Thieme, 9 to 7, before losing in the second round to the 11th-seeded team of Nejc Smole and Viktor Zetterholm from Denver U., 8 to 6.
All three doubles teams were winless in consolation play.
“I saw improvement in everybody on the team,” Wright said, adding that the lower altitude was a factor.
“There were times when we became a little impatient,” he said. “That tends to happen when you drop down a litle bit lower and the points become a little bit slower. You tend to want to over-hit more.”
Also taking place this past weekend was the ITA women’s regional tournament in Salt Lake. Among those competing were USU’s Courtney Anderson, Andrea Baker, Jill Smith and Lauren Monson.
Anderson, Baker and Smith competed in singles, while Smith also teamed up with Monson to play in the doubles bracket. All Aggie women competing in the double elimination tournament were winless.
-jhislop@cc.usu.edu