The Longhorns kicked off a full two weeks of tennis with a win over a future conference opponent this weekend.
No. 8 Texas shut out the TCU Horned Frogs, who will join the conference this summer, 7-0 in Austin on Sunday with some strong finishes in the singles matches.
“I saw some improvements in some areas that we have been working on in practice,” said Texas head coach Michael Center. “That is what we are looking for right now, to get better. A big win against a good team like TCU feels good.”
Texas (11-3) got on the scoreboard first by winning two of the doubles matches. Junior Daniel Whitehead teamed up with junior Ben Chen at the second doubles line to hand Nick and Paul Chappell of TCU an 8-2 loss. The No. 35-ranked doubles pair of junior Chris Camillone and sophomore David Holiner clinched the point for Texas with an 8-3 win over TCU’s J.T. Sundling and Will Stein at the number one spot.
In a hard fought match at the number three doubles line, freshmen Soren Hess-Olesen and Lloyd Glasspool lost their match against Daniel Sanchez and Max Stevens 8-9, 3-7 in the tiebreak.
In singles, the Longhorns scored a quick second point from Chen, who took down Stein in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1. Holiner was close behind, defeating Paul Chappell 6-0, 6-3 to give Texas its third point. Clinching the match for the Longhorns was No. 79 Whitehead, who beat Sundling 6-3, 6-1.
After dropping his first set 2-6, Glasspool came back to take the second set 6-3, and force a super tiebreaker for the third set. Glasspool won the tiebreaker 10-6 to claim the victory over Sanchez at the number four singles line, and put Texas up 5-0.
Playing in the number three singles spot, sophomore Sudanwa Sitaram dropped his first set in a tiebreaker, 6-7, but came back and took the second set 6-3 to force a tiebreaker for the third set to decide the match. Sitaram claimed the tiebreaker 10-6, and the win over TCU’s Facundo Lugones.
In the final match on court, No. 50 Hess-Olesen was tested with some lengthy points from Nick Chappell, but pulled out the win and the final point for Texas, 6-4, 6-4, getting the breaks of serve at three all in both sets.
This was the first of seven matches that the Longhorns will play over the next two weeks. The team will return to the courts on Thursday with a matchup against No. 25 San Diego, and will only have a day to recover for a doubleheader against No. 23 Florida State and No. 71 Nicholls State on Saturday.
After that, the Longhorns will take on the nation’s No. 1 team, USC, in Austin the Tuesday of spring break. After a few days rest, they will return to the courts for another doubleheader against Tulsa and UT-Permian Basin on March 18.
The last doubleheader the Longhorns hosted, they walked away with a 7-0 shutout over UTA, and a 6-1 win over UTSA. However, the Longhorns struggled in their singles matches during the night match against UTSA, so the team will need to get strong singles play in both doubleheaders to have a chance at making it through the next two weeks without losing their current top-10 ranking.
