SMU Tennis Falls To Texas
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DALLAS (SMU) – In front of a packed house of 1,825 people, the SMU Mustangs and No. 9 Texas Longhorns fought a tight match, with Texas ultimately coming away with a 4-2 win at the Brad and Ann Brookshire Family Indoor Pavilion at the SMU Tennis Complex on Saturday.
SMU (4-1) opened the match successfully, taking the opening doubles point with wins at No. 2 and No. 3. Freshman Samm Butler and sophomore Tony Russell took care of business on court 3, winning 6-3 over Michael Riechmann and Adrian Ortiz-Ruiz. Texas’ Lloyd Glasspool and Soren Hess-Olesen, the 51st-ranked doubles pair in the nation, topped SMU senior Arturs Kazijevs and sophomore Markus Kerner at No. 1 doubles 6-4, but the Mustangs would gain the 1-0 match lead with sophomore Arkadijs Slobodkins and junior Nate Lammons winning on court 2, 7-5, over Adrien Berkowicz and Nick Naumann.
The Longhorns would grab the first singles point with Glasspool beating Kerner at No. 2, 6-4, 6-4. Slobodkins immediately regained SMU’s lead with a 6-2, 7-5, victory on court 5 against Riechmann. Slobodkins was down 5-4 in the second set, but went on to break Riechmann twice in the final three games to win the match and give SMU a 2-1 lead.
Naumann tied the match for Texas by beating Lammons on court 4, 7-6 (2), 6-3. At No. 1 singles, Kazijevs dropped the first set to 13th-ranked Hess-Olesen 6-1, but fought back to take set 2 to a tiebreak. Hess-Olesen, an NCAA individual semifinalist in 2014, would go on to win the second set 7-6 (3) to give Texas its first lead of the
match. The Longhorns would seal the win shortly after with No. 48 Berkowicz beating Butler 6-4, 6-4 at the No. 3 spot.
SMU head coach Carl Neufeld was elated about the support of the crowd and the energy his team played with against the top-10 Longhorns.
“It was standing-room only everywhere; it couldn’t have been better,” Neufeld said. “I’m so proud of our fans and supporters that came out and watched an amazing match against this tremendous Texas team. This is an exciting beginning to our new future here.”
Next up for the Mustangs is a pair of home matches on Feb. 8. SMU will take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 9 a.m. CT and then face Texas-Permian Basin at 12 p.m. CT.
