March 6, 2017 Complete Results
THE RUNDOWN
BRADENTON, Fla. - On the strength of a three-set tiebreaker win from freshman
Constantin Frantzen, the 17th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team beat No. 40 South Florida, 4-3, Monday at the IMG Academy.
With the team score tied 3-3, Frantzen found himself in a battle with USF freshman Pierre Luquet. The No. 6 singles match was tied 2-2 in the third-set when it became the final contest to be decided and the two freshman traded holds to force a third-set tiebreaker. In that tiebreaker, Frantzen built a 4-2 lead, before losing the next two points and then winning the next three points to take the match and clinch the contest for BU, 4-6, 7-6(2), 7-6(4).
The deciding match ended over 40 minutes after the team score was knotted up at three points apiece. It was the second time in 2017 that Frantzen came up clutch when his team needed him most, after also clinching January's 4-3 upset over No. 15 Texas A&M with a three-set win.
To open the match, the Bears dropped the doubles point for the second-straight match and for the fourth time in 14 matches in 2017. First, BU's duo of Juan Benitez and Max Tchoutakian lost 6-3 to Justin Roberts and Peter Bertran at the No. 2 spot. However, the Bears answered right back as Johannes Schretter and Jimmy Bendeck picked up 6-3 victory against Vadym Kalyuzhnyy and Jakub Wojcik on court three.
That left the doubles point to be decided at the No. 1 spot where Will Little and Constantin Frantzen, who were playing together for the first time came up short, 6-4, against Sasha Gozun and Alberto Barraso to give the Bulls the opening point.
Baylor quickly turned around the disadvantage with victories by the 39th-ranked Tchoutakian over Roberts, 6-2, 7-5 on court two, which was followed by No. 13 Benitez securing a 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-2 triumph against Gozun at the top of the lineup to give BU a 2-1 lead.
Just as quickly as the Bears had taken the lead they found themselves in a deficit. First, the 50th-ranked Schretter faltered, 7-5, 6-2, to the 83rd-ranked Barroso at the No. 3 spot and then Little suffered a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 setback vs. Kalyuzhnyy on court 5.
Those two results left the Bears down 3-2, but Bendeck's 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 win over Bertran at the No. 4 spot knotted the contest at 3-3 and turned the attention to Frantzen's court.
TOP QUOTE #1
"That was a tight one to be honest. We try to not over emphasis the whole doubles thing. We are just trying to win four points wherever we can. It certainly didn't help that we got behind early, but we had confidence we could go out and find four points in singles. It was tough though. Honestly, we were very fortunate to win. They had a couple match points and we won all those three-setters. South Florida really did a great job. They were tough on us. I thought our guys really stuck together and did a super job of fighting as a team and finding a way to get through it." - head coach Matt Knoll on the match
OTHER NOTABLES
- Baylor is now 12-2 on the season, while USF is 4-5.
- Baylor won for the second-straight match when losing the doubles.
- Baylor is 5-2 in neutral site matches this season.
- Baylor now leads the all-time series 5-0 against the Bulls.
WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor will now travel across the country to play UC Santa Barbara Thursday and then at UCLA Saturday.
For more information on the Baylor men's tennis team all season long, follow the team's official Twitter and Instagram account: @BaylorMTennis.
