Coming off mixed results at the ITA Indoor Championships in New York City, No. 10 Texas men’s tennis swept No. 55 St. John’s 7-0 on a chilly Wednesday evening at the Texas Tennis Center. The team dominated in front of the entire St. John’s baseball team looking on, who also fell to Texas on Tuesday night.
The Longhorns came out strong, quickly earning the doubles point with a pair of sweeps. Texas’ tandem of senior Eshan Talluri and junior Pierre-Yves Bailly swept the Red Storm’s pairing of graduate student Leon Petko and junior Ignacio Vinas.
On court three, Texas senior Micah Braswell and freshman Gilles-Arnaud Bailly handled sophomore Adam Groves and freshman Marco Cinotti to secure the doubles point for the Longhorns.
Texas continued their momentum into singles, with every Longhorn winning in straight sets. No. 95 ranked Pierre-Yves finished first and was dominant throughout his match against sophomore Danilo Raicevic, winning 6-1, 6-0 in only 45 minutes, with his final point coming on a perfectly placed backhand volley to the back left corner.
No. 2 ranked Micah followed suit with a 6-2, 6-1, victory on court two. His opponent, junior Carl Gustavsson, made some impressive shots throughout the match, but Braswell held his nerve to win comfortably.
On court one, Elliott Spizzirri struggled early on, falling behind 0-2 against graduate senior Francisco Bascon, but the No. 1 ranked singles player in the nation would go on to win 11 of his next 12 games in a dominant finish to win 6-3, 6-0 and secure the victory for the Longhorns. Although the Longhorns reached the requisite four points for victory, both head coaches agreed to play out the rest of the matches.
Freshman Lucas Brown prevailed 6-1, 6-2 over freshman Armando Sotelo on court six. The Plano product was down 15-40 in the match’s final game but would respond with an impressive forehand return down the line, sprinting the width of the court to make it 30-40, winning the next two points to clinch the match.
The two younger brothers finished singles with wins as Gilles-Arnaud Bailly continued his impressive freshman campaign with a 6-1, 6-2 win over junior Leonardo Mileikovsky as he improved to 6-1 on the season. No. 48 Jonah Braswell ended proceedings on Court 5 with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Kaneda as he recorded his fourth win of the season.
Texas looks to build off of this victory after leaving the Red Storm with only 15 singles points, having swept three straight teams, along with No. 13 Michigan and No. 4 South Carolina.
Up next, Texas will face two of its toughest tests of the season as they take on No. 2 TCU in Fort Worth on Saturday. On March 10, the Longhorns will return to the Texas Tennis Center to host undefeated No. 1 Ohio State, which dealt TCU its only loss of the season in the final of the ITA Indoor Championships.
