Tulsa, Okla.—Bart Van Leijsen and Hayden Sabatka represented the University of New Mexico men’s tennis at the 2015 ITA All-American Men’s Tennis Championships for the past couple days.
The pair defeated the No. 3 seeded team of Boris Arias and Jordan Daigle from Louisiana State University yesterday 6-2, 6-4. This win clinched their spot in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
In the quarterfinal match, the duo took on Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Mac Styslinger from the University of Virginia. Van Leijsen and Sabatka fought hard, but their streak in the All-Americans ended when they fell short 6-2, 6-3.
“Credit to Virginia. Those guys have played huge matches in their careers and it showed today,” said Head Coach Bart Scott. “They defended their second serves a bit better today than we did, and were a little sharper returning. The margins were very slim and I know our guys are going to gain a tremendous amount of confidence from this tournament moving forward.”
Scott has been with Van Leijsen and Sabatka the past week in Tulsa for the tournament.
“It’s a great experience to compete against the best teams in the country. It’s good to know we are on that level with them,” Van Leijsen said.
His teammate added that their play in this tournament makes them realize that they have what it takes to compete at this high level, too.
“Coming through the qualifiers allowed us to get better and better and gave us some momentum when the mains,” Sabatka said.
The duo competed their way from the qualification draw all the way to the quarterfinals in the main draw of this prestigious tournament.
The men’s tennis team looks forward to their next tournament, the USTA/ITA Regionals that they host Oct. 21-25.
Sabatka, Van Leijsen Suffer Tough Loss in Quarterfinals
