Schenk leads Ags at BYU
One Aggie advanced to the quarterfinals while three others won matches at the BYU Invitational in Provo on Friday.
Hannes Schenk won his first two matches before losing in straight sets in the quarterfinals to Chip Hand of BYU. Kevin Stanworth and Joao Pinho won their first round matches but were beaten in the second round. Pinho also lost to Hand.
Dantley Young won his match against teammate Brian Ballam in the consolation bracket.
“Schenk played well in making it to the quarterfinals,” Utah State Tennis Coach Christian Wright said.
Overall the Aggie singles players went 5-16 for the tournament. The doubles teams went 3-7.
While no Utah State doubles team won in the first round the partnership of Pinho, a Brazilian transfer from Austin Peay, and Young mounted a comeback only to lose 9-8 to the team from the University of Colorado.
“Pinho and Young were impressive in their doubles match where they almost won after being down early,” Wright said.
The doubles teams of Schenk and Jonas Tyden and Lukas Bouton and Brad Ferguson won their matches in the back draw of the doubles bracket.
“Our performance is acceptable since we have only had one week of practice before this meet,” Wright said.
“It was the first meet for most all of the teams there so all of the teams had a lot they could improve on,” he said, “shot selection and placement of our shots could always be improved but they weren’t bad for just the one week of practice.”
He also said Schenk, from Italy, looked good in his matches. Wright believes he will become a very consistent performed for the Aggie team throughout this season.
“Pinho showed a lot of promise in his matches, both singles and doubles,”Wright said.
Besides the foreign-born players on the tennis team, Wright said that there are also a lot of local kids who have come in and shown they can help the team out.
“We should be much more improved for our next meet,”Wright said.
The next meet for the men will be at the Utah Invitational in Salt Lake the second weekend of October.
-krn@cc.usu.edu