No. 3 MT Readies for Elite Eight Against No. 6 Tennessee

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            In what amounts to a rubber match, the third-seeded Baylor men's tennis team (29-3) will face sixth-seeded Tennessee (25-7) for the third time in 12 months in the NCAA Championship quarterfinals at 3 p.m. Thursday in Champaign, Ill.
            The Bears defeated the Vols, 4-2, in last year's NCAA semifinals before suffering their first loss of the 2022 season by the same score at the ITA National Indoor semifinals on Feb. 20 in Seattle.
            "Tennessee is one of the elite programs in the country," Baylor coach Michael Woodson said. "They, obviously, got the best of us at the national indoors. So, we know them very well and have a ton of respect for them. But, excited to get an opportunity to play them again. I felt like our best tennis was ahead of us, and we have certainly rounded into form since then."
            The Vols have definitely had the easier path to the final site, dropping just one point combined in wins over Tennessee Tech, 21^st-ranked Duke and No. 28 Florida State. After a 4-0 opening-round win over ACU, Baylor went down to the wire in beating 25^th-ranked Texas A&M, 4-2, and No. 18 Stanford, 4-3.
            "Getting pressed early and having our backs against the wall like we did against A&M and Stanford, I think it's going to really serve us well," Woodson said. "Because once you get here, everybody's really good. There are the elite of the elite.
            "And the pressure will feel less, because four of the best teams in the country are going to lose on Thursday. There's no shame in making it to the Elite Eight and not getting it done. I think our guys will feel a lot more free to go ahead and swing for the fences and play their games and be the best version of themselves."
            Tennessee leads the all-time series, 7-3, but Baylor has a 2-1 edge against the Vols in the NCAA Tournament, winning 4-1 in the Round of 16 in 2008 and getting beat 4-0 in a quarterfinal in 2010.
            Almost three months to the day, Tennessee got through the ITA National Indoor semifinals with a 4-2 win over the Bears. With the singles evenly split, the match ultimately came down to the doubles, where defending NCAA doubles champions Pat Harper and Adam Walton defeated Baylor's Juampy Mazzuchi and Matias Soto, 6-4, at No. 2 doubles.
            Despite losing the doubles point nine times this year, the Vols "pride themselves" on strong doubles play. Harper and Walton are 13^th and Shunsuke Mitsui and Emile Hudd are 21^st in the latest ITA doubles rankings, with both teams selected to the NCAA Doubles Championship.
            "I think it hurt us in February, because we were up on every single court in doubles, and then lost," said Woodson, who has a pair of top-10 teams in Finn Bass and Adrian Boitan (2^nd) and Mazzuchi/Soto (9^th) that will also play in the NCAA Doubles Championship.
            "We were going through a phase of having opportunities and not closing them out. And thankfully, we've come a long way since that point. They also switched their Nos. 1 and 2 doubles teams, so we will have some slightly different matchups that I really like for us. Honestly, I think we were so bad in doubles against Stanford that we really learned from it."
            In that earlier matchup this spring, the Vols "exploited us in some areas, both in the doubles and early on in the singles that we needed to learn from," Woodson said.
            Other than flipping Mazzuchi and TCU transfer Tadeas Paroulek in Nos. 5 and 6 singles, Baylor hasn't really done much to change the lineup, but "we definitely have done our homework since then," he said. The Bears have won 16 of their last 18 matches, including a pair on the road at top-seeded TCU.
            "I think we used that to really improve as a team," Woodson said. "It's exciting to test ourselves again against that group, to see if we can get the job done this time, outside."
            Tennessee has a trio of ranked singles players in Walton (No. 3), sophomore Johannus Monday (10^th) and Hudd (74^th). Baylor counters with a lineup led by the fifth-ranked Boitan at No. 1, 36^th-ranked Soto at No. 2 and the 73^rd-ranked Lah at No. 3, while the 58^th-ranked Paroulek and Mazzuchi have been close to automatic in the bottom half.
            "It's so interesting to see how these matches play out, the excitement and where the pressure's going to fall," Woodson said. "And every single one of our guys has had that responsibility of carrying the fate of the team on their shoulders in big moments. It does make us feel good going into Thursday that it doesn't matter whose name is called, if it comes down to 3-all, we're going to be in a good spot."
            To this point, the bracket has been all chalk, with the top eight seeds all advancing to the Elite Eight. The Baylor-Tennessee winner advances to face either second-seeded Florida or No. 7 Virginia at 1 p.m. Saturday, while TCU is joined by eighth-seeded Kentucky, No. 4 Ohio State and fifth-seeded Michigan in the other half of the bracket.
            "I think there's an enjoyment about it that I really like to see," Woodson said of his players. "A lot of these guys know what it's going to take and know that they need to be on it from start to finish. Their practices leading up and the way they treat their bodies is critical. There's a little bit of a different edge about the team, as we got into tourney time. It's a special thing to be a part of and to see."
            Including Sunday's 3 p.m. final, all of the matches will be streamed by TennisOne.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – No. 3 national seed Baylor prepares for sixth-seeded Tennessee in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, to be played on Thursday at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Center with a 3 p.m. CT start time.

The Bears (29-3) face the Volunteers (25-7) for the second time on the season and the first time outdoors on Thursday.

With the wins against Abilene Christian, Texas A&M and Stanford in the respective first, second and super regional rounds, BU improved its all-time record in the NCAA Tournament to 65-22.

Baylor currently has a 16-3 record against ranked opponents this season, including a 12-3 record against those in the Top-25. Out of the eight teams remaining in the tournament, the top three seeds – TCU, Florida and Baylor – have made three-consecutive quarterfinal appearances.

BU is one of five teams that has faced all but two of the opponents in the Elite Eight this season. For the Bears, they haven't faced Ohio State or Florida in 2022.

The last time the Bears faced Tennessee was in the semifinals of the ITA Indoor Championships in February. The then-ranked No. 2 Volunteers bested BU, 4-2.

The all-time series between Tennessee and Baylor is led by UT at 7-3, while BU leads the series when playing in the NCAA Tournament at 2-1. Thursday will be the third time the two have met in 12 months.

UT advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Tennessee Tech, Duke and Florida State, all in Knoxville. Tennessee only gave up one point combined to its opponents in the first three rounds of the tournament.

Senior Sven Lah is only one doubles win away from breaking Constantin Frantzen's school record, currently tied with him at 112. He and Finn Bass, the third-ranked doubles pair, have a record of 16-7 in dual matches on court one going into the quarterfinals. Ninth-ranked pair Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi and Matias Soto are 21-5 in doubles play and are on a three-match winning streak. Court three's pairing of Adrian Boitan and Tadeas Paroulek are 13-5 on the dual-match season.

No. 5 ranked Boitan went 17-0 in singles in the regular season, all on court one, and is now 19-1. No. 36 Soto is 13-10, while No. 73 Lah is 16-7. Rounding out the bottom half of the projected lineup are Bass with a 20-8 record, No. 58 Paroulek at 15-2 and Grassi Mazzuchi at 26-3.

Going into the quarterfinals, head coach Michael Woodson is 63-8 in his career and 12-1 thus far in postseason play. The Bears look for their second-straight semifinals berth on Thursday against the Volunteers.
The match will be streamed on TennisONE, while live stats can be found here.

A full recap and final statistics can be found on BaylorBears.com after the conclusion of the match.

To stay up to date throughout the season on all things Baylor men's tennis, follow the team on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @BaylorMTennis.

- BaylorBears.com -

No. 3 MT Readies for Elite Eight Against No. 6 Tennessee

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Players Mentioned

Finn Bass

Adrian Boitan

Constantin Frantzen

Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi

Sven Lah

Tadeas Paroulek

Matias Soto

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