BOX SCORE   GRANT CHEN POSTGAME INTERVIEW
 
ORLANDO, Fla. (SMU) – SMU men's tennis dropped a heartbreaker to No. 29 USF in the American Athletic Conference semifinals on Friday at the USTA National Campus.
 
The Mustangs and Bulls battled for 3 hours and 30 minutes for a spot in the AAC Finals. Three singles matches went into third sets but USF was able to pull out a pair of third sets to clinch the match and advance to face No. 1 seed UCF in Saturday's final.
 
The Mustangs began the match with an incredible doubles victory. After losing court one, Clarke Wilson and Huntley Allen won the final three games of a 7-5 match to win their court. Jan-Simon Vrbsky and Julian Steinhausen faced two Bull match points at 4-5 and remained alive. Again, they found themselves down, this time down 5-6 and 0-40 in the game. The duo won four straight Bull match points to force a tiebreaker. Trailing 5-4 in the breaker, the Mustangs won three consecutive points to complete the thrilling doubles comeback.
 
Singles play was a back-and-forth affair with USF pulling out the four courts they needed to advance. Bulls gained the momentum in the match with first-set wins on four of six courts. They tied up the dual after a 6-1, 6-1 win on line two over Chakravarthi. Both Vaise and Liam Krall dropped their first sets only to respond with set two wins.
 
USF went up, 2-1, when Steinhausen lost his match on line six, 7-6 (3), 6-3. Vrbsky gave the Mustangs hope with a straight-set victory that evened the score at 2-2. Vaise would fall in set three on court one to No. 62 Chase Ferguson to move USF to within one point of a win, 3-2.
 
Clarke Wilson won his first set, 6-4 and forced a tiebreaker in the second. In a memorable breaker, Wilson and his opponent went toe-to-toe for 22 points before USF forced a third set.

Krall found himself down a break, 5-6, in the third set. The freshman trailed 00-30 before winning four straight to force the tiebreaker. USF would close out the match with a 7-3 win in the third-set breaker.
 
The Mustangs are now 18-14 on the season while USF improves to 16-8. SMU faced 11 ranked opponents in its last 17 matches with wins over No. 33 Tulsa, No. 19 Tulane and No. 35 San Diego. The Mustangs will find out their postseason fate during the NCAA selection show on May 3 at 5:30 CT.