BYU tennis: despite team effort, No. 68 BYU falls to No. 1 Wake Forest

No. 68 BYU men’s tennis dropped a tough match, 4-0, against No. 1 Wake Forest at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in North Carolina on Friday evening.

“It was a great opportunity and experience to play the No. 1 team and for Sean [Hill] to play the No. 1 player in the country,” BYU head coach Brad Pearce said. “He played the kind of tennis we’ve seen him play on a daily basis to take the first set, so I couldn’t be more proud of him. We didn’t play as well as I would have liked in doubles, but I loved the way we bounced back and played much better at every position in singles. We’re looking forward to playing No. 37 Old Dominion tomorrow, who we have at home on March 2.”

Despite the effort, the Cougars (3-2) dropped the doubles point to the Demon Deacons (4-0). Melios Efstathiou and Siddhant Banthia earned a 6-2 win over Mateo Vereau Melendez and Matthew Pearce in the No. 3 spot. In the No. 1 spot, Petros Chrysochos and Bar Botzer defeated No. 19 Sean Hill and Jeffrey Hsu, 6-2.

The No. 2 doubles match between BYU’s Sam Tullis and Ben Gajardo and Wake Forest’s Julian Zlobinsky and Alan Gadjiev was suspended at 1-5.

Comment on this story

Moving into singles, the Demon Deacons claimed the next three wins. Zlobinsky earned the first singles point for the evening against BYU’s Vinicius Feijao Nogueira, 6-4, 6-2, in the No. 6 spot. In No. 3 singles, Yuval Solomon of Wake Forest topped Vereau, 7-6, 6-4, despite Vereau bringing the first set to a tiebreaker.

Despite hard efforts in the first set, BYU’s Sam Tullis fell to No. 39 Efstathiou in a close 7-6, 6-2, match at the No. 3 spot, bringing the dual match to a close with the final score of 4-0 for Wake Forest.

In the No. 1 spot, Hill faced off against No. 1 Chrysochos and managed to take set one, 7-6, despite the match being suspended.

The Cougars remain in North Carolina to face No. 37 Old Dominion on Saturday, Jan. 26, at 2 p.m. EDT. Live stats are available on the schedule page.