Texas men’s tennis battled No. 1 Wake Forest but ultimately fell 4-2 to the defending national champions at the Weller Tennis Center on Wednesday.
Despite ultimate loss, Texas opened with a strong showing in the doubles, taking two of three matches and grabbing early momentum. Texas senior Sebastian Gorzny and freshman Lucas Marionneau set the match tone early on, dominating Wake Forest’s Luca Pow and Mees Rottgering in a 6-1 win.
Freshmen Abel Forger and Kalin Ivanovski, who have been paired up since January, put together an impressive performance on court one. The duo executed the match with a 6-3 win over Demon Deacon senior DK Suresh Ekambaram and sophomore Charlie Robertson.
Across the complex, Texas junior Lucas Brown and senior Jonah Braswell scrambled to cover the court, falling 2-6 to Wake Forest freshman Aryan Shah and sophomore Kacper Szymkowiak.
As doubles wrapped up and shifted into singles play, the crowd’s attention turned toward courts one and two.
Fans watched the back-and-forth between Shah and Ivanovski during the first set, with Ivanovski putting up a strong fight before ultimately falling to Shah. Gorzny secured the Longhorns’ only singles victory by defeating No. 6-ranked Ekambaram.
“I played (Ekambaram) last season, and we had a really close match,” Gorzny said. “He got me 7-6 in the third, so it’s great to kind of get revenge and get a close win over a great player.”
Despite a brief setback early in the second set, Gorzny settled back into the advantage he gained in the first, dominating the match in straight sets, 6-3 and 6-4.
As singles play progressed into the second set, momentum shifted sharply in favor of the Demon Deacons across most courts, with the exception of Gorzny’s match.
Ivanovski continued his fight, appearing poised in his singles match against Shah and leveling the first set at 4-4. But momentum slipped away, and, despite some promising plays, he lost the opening set 6-4. Ivanovski momentarily regrouped in the second set, but Shah once again took control of the match, securing a 6-4, 6-3 victory.
Following his doubles win, Forger fought through a competitive singles match against Pow but lost in two sets, 6-4, 6-3.
After their singles play concluded, the Longhorns gathered on court two to support the remaining players: Eriksson, Jonah and Marionneau.
The encouragement seemed to help Eriksson, rebounding from a 6-3 first-set loss to push a 6-6 tiebreaker in the second set. Eriksson battled through multiple deuces, but Rottgering took the win, 6-3, 7-6.
“I’m the guy that they look up to, so I have to be a good leader and show up every day in practice and matches and show them confidence and give them energy and lead by example,” Gorzny said.
The Longhorns return to action on Friday against UNC Wilmington at the Texas Tennis Center at 12 p.m. CT in Austin.
