SAN ANTONIO – The UTSA men's tennis team closed out its home-opening weekend with a loss at the hands of undefeated UC Santa Barbara, 5-2 on Sunday afternoon.
The Roadrunners (1-3) were able to claim their first doubles point of the season, winning two of the three matchups, but faltered in singles action as the Gauchos won five of the six singles. UCSB (7-0) swept its weekend opponents, downing both UTSA and New Orleans (on Saturday) as it returns home with an unblemished record.
Doubles
The doubles action began the Friday competition and the first matchup featured UC Santa Barbara's Pablo Masjuan/Luka Mrsic against UTSA's Tiago Torres/Tomas Pinho. Pinho and Torres were able to defeat the pair of Gauchos, 6-2, winning UTSA's first doubles match of the spring season. The next match to finish featured UTSA's nationally ranked pair of Sebastian Rodriguez/Alan Magadan against UCSB's Kai Brady/Phillip Jordan. Brady and Jordan worked well together and were able to down UTSA's ranked duo, winning 6-4. The doubles point came down to the final match as Garrett Skelly/Jackson Ross were up against the Gauchos' Lucca Liu/Gianluca Brunkow. The two teams went back and forth and eventually found themselves tied at six-all. So, in the tiebreaker, UTSA pulled away from UCSB (77-65) to claim the first point of the day for the Roadrunners.
Singles
Following doubles action, the six singles matchups began. UTSA scored won just one match which coincidentally was the first to conclude. Rodriguez (2-2) got the singles action started, making short work of UCSB's Gianluca (6-3, 6-0) and giving the Roadrunners a 2-0 lead. From here, however, it was all about the Gauchos as UCSB swept the five remaining singles matches. After Rodriguez's match finished, Danijal Muminovic (1-3) dropped his match to Mrsic (6-3, 6-4) and not long after that, Magadan fell to Masjuan. After the rapid conclusion of the first three matches, UCSB and UTSA found themselves knotted up at two apiece. The Gauchos started applying the pressure as their freshman, Conrad Brown, bested Ross (1-3), (6-1, 77-65). Knowing they needed to win the two remaining singles matches to win the dual, pressure ramped up on the remaining Roadrunners. Tómas Pinho and UCSB's Liu did battle, going to a match-deciding third set where Liu was able to pull away and secure a Gaucho victory, winning (6-3, 3-6, 6-3). Though the dual was decided, the final singles match played out. Torres and Phillip, much like Pinho and Liu, went to a third set as well. The two were knotted at six so a tiebreaker was necessary too. In the tiebreaker, Torres was penalized so he lost the tiebreak as UCSB won by default.
Up Next
UTSA will return to action on Sunday, Feb. 5, as it welcomes UC Santa Barbara to the UTSA Tennis Center. Sunday morning's match will begin at 11 a.m. to wrap up its home-opening weekend matches.
- UTSA -
