The Longhorns beat a conference foe and went undefeated over the weekend to earn a spot in the indoor championships in February.
On Sunday, Texas defeated the Texas Tech Red Raiders 4-0.
In the doubles session, the third line duo of freshman Jacoby Lewis and sophomore Sudanwa Sitaram played an even match against juniors Gabriel Wanderley and Jeff Bryan of Tech. The Longhorns got the first service break at 3-3 in the match, but were broken right back on a controversial line call by the chair umpire. Lewis and Sitaram got another break at 5-5, though a hold by Tech allowed Lewis to serve out the set for an 8-6 Texas win.
In the number one doubles slot, freshman Soren Hess-Olesen and junior Alex Hilliard had a tough match against Raony Carvalho and Rafael Garcia of Tech. Tech got the first break of the match at 2-2 after a lengthy deuce game where the advantage switched back and forth between the teams. Texas was able to break Tech in the next game, but suffered another break at 3-4 to push Tech up to 5-3. Tech went on to close out the match 8-3.
In the match to decide the doubles point, junior Daniel Whitehead and sophomore David Holiner kept it interesting for the fans. The Longhorns got down, but held serve 4-7 and immediately broke the Tech duo of Gonzalo Escobar and Vitor Manzini to make the score 6-7. Both teams held serve to push the match to a tiebreaker. After getting behind 1-3 in the tiebreak, Texas came back and took the set and the doubles point, with a 7-4 win in the tiebreak.
In the singles matches, freshman Lloyd Glasspool, playing in the number four position, scored a quick 6-3, 6-1 victory over Francisco Zambon to put Texas ahead 2-0.
Adding another victory to Texas’ overall total was Sitaram, who didn’t let a Tech injury time-out faze him, as he earned a 6-2, 6-2 win over Tech’s Garcia.
Earning the final point for Texas was Whitehead, ranked No. 112, who scored a straight set win over Escobar, a USTA/ITA Regional champ ranked No. 23. After winning the first set, 6-0, Whitehead weathered a comeback from Escobar, and got the break at 4 all in the second set and served the match out to give Texas the win. At that point all other singles matches still on court were suspended.
To earn the spot in Sunday’s match, Texas defeated Maryland on Saturday, 4-0. Contributing towards that win were the doubles team of Whitehead and Holiner, and Sitaram and Lewis for the doubles point. Singles victories came from Hess-Olesen, Whitehead and Holiner, who fought back from a 0-4 hole in the second set to take the match with a 6-0, 6-4 win.
With the two victories, Texas sealed its spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships at Charlottesville, Va. on Feb. 17-20.
