Men’s tennis has minimal success at BYU
The USU men’s tennis team had few victories this week at the Utah Fall Tennis Classics hosted by Brigham Young University. The Thursday, Friday and Saturday tournament posed some challenges for the athletes after bringing in tough competition from Boise State and Montana State, along with in-state rivals BYU and Weber.
Most of Thursday’s success came from USU’s only freshman, Jakob Asplund. Asplund went 2-0 in singles and partnered up with sophomore Oscar Ericsson to score 1-1 in doubles. Asplund has overall been a strong player on the team, and Head Coach Christian Wright said he has no regrets from recruiting him.
“Yeah, I mean he’s a freshman, but we heard great things from his previous coach,” Wright said. “I think he’s a good addition to our team.”
Other teammates that stepped up to the plate Thursday were Fernando Gallegos and Jonas Tyden. The returning seniors each went 1-1 in singles. Unfortunately, USU’s other senior, Mike Banks, was unable to help his team out after receiving a hairline fracture to his wrist. Being unable to practice, he will hopefully be up to the challenge for their second tournament in October, Wright said.
Friday proved to be a challenge but paid off for a couple athletes. Ericsson won his singles match and a bittersweet victory went to Tyden after he defeated his own teammate, sophomore Alex Thatcher, 6-2, 6-1 in singles. This moved them both on to round three of singles consolations, which was held Saturday. Thursday standouts Asplund and Gallegos were unable to move on after losing in the second round, 6-1, 6-2.
After playing two consecutive days on top of a previous tournament last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the team was lacking energy and strength coming into Saturday’s meets, Wright said.
With only a three-day turnaround, Tyden “wasn’t even near 100 percent,” Wright said. He said Tyden wasn’t fully recovered from last week, which was part of the problem for his loss Saturday.
Most of the teams the Aggies faced off against at BYU didn’t play in tournaments last week, Wright said, so they were a little fresher.
“I think that was the main reason we didn’t win more these past few days,” he said. “We were just a little beat up.”
Even though the team didn’t pull off as many victories as hoped for at BYU, there is much to look forward to this year. When it comes to working together and helping each other improve, “we’re ahead from last year,” Wright said.
The team will have plenty of time to ice their joints for the ITA Regionals, which is more than a month away.
-b.fairman@aggiemail.usu.edu