After a convincing victory over No. 55 St. John’s on Wednesday, No. 10 Texas faced its toughest test this season against No. 2 TCU in Fort Worth. In their first matchup of the season, the Longhorns fell in an incredibly close 4-3 loss to the Horned Frogs.
Doubles started poorly, as the No. 6 pairing of graduate senior Eliot Spizzirri and redshirt senior Cleeve Harper lost 1-6 against the No. 5 pairing of sophomore Sebastian Gorzny and junior Pedro Vives.
On Court 2, junior Pierre-Yves Bailly and senior Eshan Talluri trailed 1-3 before coming back to win 6-3 over graduate senior Jake Fearnley and sophomore Jack Pinnington, setting up a deciding doubles set for Texas freshman Gilles-Arnaud Bailly and senior Micah Braswell.
No. 31 TCU pair freshman Duncan Chan and junior Lui Maxted broke at 5-5 to serve for the doubles point. Chan hit a perfect serve down the T to win, marking another close doubles loss for Texas.
The Longhorns started strong in singles, however. Cleeve Harper won the first set 6-1 over Lui Maxted, and in a heavyweight battle on Court 1, No. 1 Eliot Spizzirri took the first set 6-4 over No. 14 Jake Fearnley. No. 2 Micah and No. 48 Jonah Braswell followed with first-set wins of 6-3 and 6-4 over No. 8 Jack Pinnington and graduate senior Tomas Jirousek, respectively.
On Courts 3 and 4, Gilles-Arnaud and Pierre-Yves Bailly played set tiebreaks against No. 21 Pedro Vives and No. 38 Sebastian Gorzny, respectively. Gilles-Arnaud was strong in a 7-2 tiebreak win; however, Pierre-Yves narrowly lost, 6-8, and couldn’t bounce back, losing the match 6-7, 1-6. Jonah Braswell fiercely clinched the first point for Texas with a resounding sweep in the second set, winning 6-4, 6-0.
Harper looked to win in straight sets, starting with a 3-1 second set lead before No. 68 Lui Maxted won the next five games and took the second set. Harper was unable to rebound as Maxted finished a strong third set to win 1-6, 6-3, 6-2. On Court 2, after holding every game, Micah Braswell and Jack Pinnington played a second set tiebreak, with Braswell winning 7-5 to make the match score 2-3 in favor of the Horned Frogs.
Texas needed wins from Spizzirri and Gilles-Arnaud Bailly. Things became heated on Court 1 as Spizzirri and Fearnley had many disputes over line calls, with some getting overruled by the head official. The two went to a second set tiebreak, which was taken by Fearnley, 8-6, forcing a third set.
Bailly and Vives found themselves even at five in the second set. In this game, Bailly went up 15-40 with breakpoint, when Bailly gave Vives an overhead shot. Vives, however, mistimed it, giving Bailly a game to serve for the match. Bailly held easily, finishing with a backhand volley winner to set up a deciding third set on Court 1.
Spizzirri and Fearnley continued to hold serve through a nerve-wracking third set until 4-4 when Spizzirri finally got broken to give Fearnley a match-winning opportunity, which he capitalized on to win 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, and clinch the match for TCU.
Texas looks to bounce back from the heartbreaking loss next week at the Texas Tennis Center when it takes on No. 1 Ohio State.
