PROVO, Utah — The University of New Mexico men’s tennis team had moments, but not enough as the homestanding BYU Cougars handed UNM its fourth straight loss, as BYU won 4-0 at the BYU Indoor Courts in Provo, Utah.
“We had an opportunity and played well, but BYU is a very good team,” said Ben Dunbar. “We have played good tennis, but we need to have a result and some confidence. We are close though.”
The Cougars opened with a pair of doubles wins to go up 1-0. At No. 2 doubles, UNM’s Casey Recci and Tim Buttner lost 6-1 to Sam Tullis and Ben Gajardo, and at No. 3 doubles, UNM’s Dominic West and Facundo Bermejo lost by the same score. Had UNM been able to pull one of those out, it could have been a very different doubles point as the No. 1 doubles match between Ricky Hernandez Tong and Stepan Holis were tied at 4-4 with Sean Hill and Jeffrey Hsu when the match was halted.
Buttner lost to Tullis at No. 4 singles 6-3, 6-3 to make it 2-0 Cougars. Hernandez Tong put up quite the battle at No. 1 singles, with his opening set going to a tiebreaker. That tiebreaker went the way of BYU’s Sean Hill, who won it 7-4. Hill then took the second set 6-3 to make it 3-0 BYU. At No. 3 singles, Holis lost his opening set at the same time his teammate Dominic West lost his opening set 6-4 to Hsu.
But both were able to battle back. Holis took the second set from Mateo Vereau 6-4, forcing a third set. As that third set went on, Dominic West was about to force a third set of his own as he was up 6-5 in the second with set point upcoming. However, Holis dropped his third set 6-2 to give BYU the win.
The only match to get started was No. 5 singles, as Facundo and Gajardo of BYU were tied 2-2.
UNM will stay in the area and face Utah on Sunday.
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