After a 5-2 home loss to No. 16 Baylor on Saturday the Waves were disappointed again on their home territory Wednesday afternoon. They seemed unprepared for a challenge as the team now ranked No. 24 was defeated in a close 4-3 match by No. 51 Minnesota.
“It was disappointing to lose to them because I feel like we are a better team freshman Finn Tearney said. We just didn’t bring it like we needed to. To beat teams like that we need to be 100 percent and we were not today. There were too many ups and downs.”
Tearney won in singles Wednesday playing in the No. 5 position but was defeated at No. 2 doubles with teammate Hugh Clarke. Sophomore Daniel Moss and freshman Sebastian Fanselow also had individual wins taking No. 6 and No. 2 singles respectively.
“I was happy with my singles performance Fanselow said. Doubles wasn’t quite as good but I feel like it’s getting better. I think the fact that I want to win for my team helped me pull off the wins. But I don’t think that we showed our level today and how good we can really be.”
Fanselow also won his doubles match with teammate Alejandro Moreno a junior at No. 3. Theirs was the only doubles win of the day. Moreno credited the practice he and his doubles partner have recently put into doubles improvement.
“We’ve been practicing a lot together Moreno said. And we returned really well today which is our weakest part of the game and it’s what we’ve been trying to improve on. Our good start gave us confidence to keep playing hard until we won the match.”
Despite the No. 3 doubles victory the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles defeats hurt the Waves particularly hard against Minnesota as the singles points stood tied with three wins and three losses.
“For the team the energy wasn’t there for the entire time and that’s really what killed us Moreno said. In doubles we really started dying. We needed more energy and intensity. The team went into the day really thinking we were going to beat them. Once we realized we were in a hole it was too late to get out.”
The match against Baylor on Saturday saw similar results with one win of the three doubles events and just two wins of the six singles events. But senior Bassam Beidas impressively stood out as he claimed the No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles events and upset highly nationally ranked players.
“I was very happy with how I played in beating a very tough player who historically I don’t have a great record against Beidas said. I have been working hard recently to try and get my game back on track and I knew that it would pay off eventually.”
His efforts paid off against Baylor. Beidas who holds the No. 90 national ranking teamed up with sophomore Alex Llompart to defeat the No. 17 pair in the nation and went on to defeat Denes Lukacs in singles the No. 22 ranked player in the nation.
However with a team disappointment Beidas felt unsatisfied with the day.
“The ultimate goal in team tennis is to win as a team and when we fail to do that we are all very down at the end of the day regardless of how we performed as individuals he said.
The team aims to quickly leave the past two matches behind, as they head to Texas to take on Texas A&M on Friday and the Longhorns on Sunday.
We have to work on our intensity and get out of this hole together Moreno said. We have to be aggressive and stay together as a team to get out of this hole.”