There’s no love lost when the top two Big 12 teams face off against each other, where a small sequence can turn the match. On Sunday in Austin, Texas capitalized on TCU’s visible frustrations to sweep with a score of 5-0.
Texas claimed an early lead in doubles led by No. 3 pair of seniors Micah Braswell and Cleeve Harper, who swept Pedro Vives and Tomas Jirousek. Junior Pierre-Yves Bailly and senior Eshan Talluri also claimed an advantage with an early break against Duncan Chan and Lui Maxted.
Eventually, however, Texas’ lead was in jeopardy as No. 1 pair of seniors Eliot Spizzirri and Siem Woldeab fell behind 3-5 against Jake Fearnley and Jack Pinnington, and at 4-2 up, Bailly and Talluri were down three break points and needed some heroics to remain ahead.
But Talluri delivered; after Texas won the point at 15-40, Talluri served two aces to go up 5-3. Spizzirri and Woldeab evened the score, at which point Pinnington slammed the ball into the ground out of frustration. Texas clinched the doubles point moments later as Bailly held serve to win 6-3.
In singles, TCU put Pinnington against Spizzirri and Fearnley, who injured his wrist, against Micah Braswell. Pinnington quickly curbed his frustration and broke Spizzirri to go up 3-0.
However, Spizzirri shook off early unforced errors to break twice and claim a 4-3 lead. Pinnington then battled back to go up 5-4. In the next game, Spizzirri double-faulted on a deuce to give the set to Pinnington.
On Court 2, Braswell took advantage of Fearnley’s underhand serves with a 6-4 first set win. Meanwhile, both Pierre-Yves and freshman Gilles-Arnaud Bailly started hot, winning their first sets 6-2 and 6-1 against Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives, respectively.
At No. 5 singles between Woldeab and Jirousek, there was a massive line dispute. At 6-5, Woldeab had set point, where he hit an inside-out forehand near the line that Jirousek called out. However, the official overruled it, giving the set to Woldeab. Both Jirousek and TCU head coach David Roditi contested this with the official for several minutes, continuing TCU’s frustration throughout the match.
Micah Braswell pulled away to win the first singles match for Texas and continue his undefeated spring. The Bailly brothers followed suit with clinical second-set wins to clinch the match for Texas, highlighted by Pierre-Yves’ final point where he passed Maxted, who was at the net, with a beautiful backhand down the line.
Texas head coach Bruce Berque and Roditi agreed to play out Spizzirri and Pinnington’s match, where the two remained in a heated battle. Spizzirri fought off a match point at 4-5 and continued the momentum to win the second set, setting up a ten-point set tiebreaker.
Spizzirri went up 5-2, but Pinnington roared back to win the next five points. He had three more match points, but Spizzirri fought them off to continue the match. At 12-12, Spizzirri broke the tie to win the next two points and complete the sweep.
The Longhorns extended their win streak to five with their second top-two win this season. On Thursday, they will head to Provo, Utah to take on BYU.
