BOX SCORE SEASON STATS GRANT CHEN POSTGAME THOUGHTS
DALLAS (SMU) – SMU men's tennis fell to No. 4 Baylor, 6-1, at the SMU Tennis Complex on Sunday afternoon. The Mustangs earned a doubles victory against the Bears with wins from
Caleb Chakravarthi/
Jan-Simon Vrbsky and
Huntley Allen/
Julian Steinhausen.
The Mustangs hosted a Baylor team leading the nation in wins and featuring two nationally-ranked doubles teams and three ranked singles players.
Doubles play was tight all the way through between the Bears and Mustangs.
Huntley Allen and
Julian Steinhausen stayed perfect as a partnership with a 6-3 win on court three.
Tomas Vaise and
Juan Jose Bianchi faced No. 22 Sven Lah and Constantin Frantzen on the top line. They dropped the match, 6-4 to bring the doubles play to even.
Chakaravarthi and Vrbsky teamed up on line two against No. 51 Nick Stachowiak and Matias Soto. Baylor led 5-3 before SMU fended off two match points to stay alive. The Mustangs pulled out wins in the last four games to win the set and steal doubles from Baylor.
Baylor took the edge back in singles play winning five first sets. Chakravarthi won the Mustangs lone first set with a dominant 6-1 win over No. 90 Boitan. Baylor took a 3-1 dual match lead with a trio of 6-3, 6-1 victories, getting wins over Vrbsky on four, Allen on six and
Clarke Wilson on three.
SMU tightened it up after Krall answered a first set defeat with a strong 6-1 set two win against the 9
th-ranked singles player in the country. Steinhausen played a tight second set against No. 114 Furman but ultimately lost the match, 6-4, 6-4 clinching the victory for Baylor. Krall would lose his third set to drop his match, 6-3, 1-6, 6-2.
Chakravarthi forced a super tiebreaker to decide the second set but lost it, 7-3. He would lose 10-5 in the third-set supertiebreaker to complete the 6-1 score.
SMU moves to 13-11 on the season and 11-4 on its home courts. Baylor improves to 21-3 on the season with its fifth-straight victory.
Next up, the Mustangs travel to Wichita to face No. 34 Wichita State and No. 27 Pepperdine on Friday and Saturday.