The No. 48 TCU men’s tennis team (6-4) suffered another heartbreaking loss against the Golden Hurricane Sunday afternoon. The match went down to the wire as No. 32 Tulsa won the final set of the final match to take the 4-3 win.
“For us, to be the team that I think we can be, we must find a way to capitalize on the opportunities that we create,” head coach David Roditi said in a press release. “We must get production from every one of our players, from top to bottom, on a daily basis if we want to be playing in May where we want to be playing.”
Doubles play was played on the indoor courts due to inclement weather, but otherwise was business as usual.
TCU suffered a scare after potent duo No. 18 Nick Chappell and Will Stein dropped their match in a 8-6 upset after Tulsa took an early lead, winning the first doubles showdown.
Trey Daniel and Arnau Dachs then won the deciding set over Alejandro Espejo and Japie De Klerk, to earn the doubles point for the Frogs.
Singles play was another battle similar to the meet Saturday afternoon against Texas. Tulsa struck first as No. 97 Japie De Klerk dropped No. 93 Facundo Lugones, 6-0, 6-3 to take a 2-1 lead.
No. 51 Nick Chappell suffered an upset at the hands of Tulsa’s Clifford Marsland, 6-1, 2-6, 6-0 to give Tulsa a 2-1 lead.
The Horned Frogs won matches at the No. 4 and No. 5 singles positions to tie the match at three apiece. This set up drama for a final deciding match between TCU’s Jhonathan Gonzalez and Tulsa’s Daniel Santos.
The gap between the two players was air tight as the match went to three sets. Gonzalez dropped the first set 7-5, but rallied in the second set 6-2 and tied the final set at six. Gonzalez then lost the tiebreaker 7-4 and the set 7-6 to give Tulsa the 4-3 win.
“It was a tough loss, but a great college match,” Roditi said. “It is too bad that only our true fans got to experience it because it was six hours of pure excitement and suspense and we are lucky we get to feel the way we feel right now.”
With the loss, TCU drops to 6-4 overall. Their next match will be against Pepperdine University in Malibu, California at 7 p.m. on March 8.
