Men’s Tennis Has Six-Match Win Streak Snapped at Baylor

Saturday, February 27

Waco, TX

5:00 p.m.

University of Memphis

#34 Baylor University

Photo by: Joe Murphy

Men’s Tennis Has Six-Match Win Streak Snapped at Baylor

Feb 27, 2016 | Men's Tennis

Tigers fall to Bears, 4-0.

By: Tammy DeGroff

MEMPHIS – The University of Memphis men's tennis team (7-3) suffered its first loss in the month of February, falling 4-0 at number 34 ranked Baylor (7-4), Saturday. Baylor, who was ranked number four in the country just two ranking periods ago, won a wild tiebreaker that saw both two and three doubles go to a tiebreak. The Bears then got wins from two of their ranked singles players and added a win at five to seal the win over the visiting Tigers.

The home team took the first win of the match with a 6-4 win at number one doubles. But things got interesting from there. Both matches at two and three ended up going to a tiebreaker, with the Memphis duo of Andrew Watson and Shakeel Manji winning their breaker 7-6 (4) to make it 1-1. At number two, the team of Ryan Peniston and Felix Rauch were also in a breaker. Serving at 7-6 down in the breaker, Peniston charged to the net and stabbed at a backhand volley. But his momentum spun him around and his foot scraped the net, drawing a violation for the match and doubles point.

There wasn't much time to bounce back from the tough doubles loss, and Memphis dropped five first sets. Sophomore Andrew Watson was the lone exception, as he came back from 4-2 down and won a first set tiebreak 7-6. He was leading 4-2 in the second set and looking for a win, but before he could get there, Baylor got wins at one, three and five singles to decide the match.

The road will not get any easier for Memphis from here. The Tigers travel to Oklahoma to face the No. 10 ranked Sooners, Monday, at 2 p.m. in Norman.

No. 34 Baylor 4, #17 Memphis 0
Doubles
No. 1 – Julian Lenz/Jimmy Bendeck def. Louis Asser/Kai Lemke (Memphis), 6-4
No. 2 – Felipe Rios/Will Little def. Ryan Peniston/Felix Rauch (Memphis), 7-6 (6)
No. 3 – Andrew Watson/Shakeel Manji (Memphis) def. Max Tchoutakian/Tommy Podvinski, 7-6 (4)
Order of Finish: 1, 3, 2
Singles
No. 1 -- #26 Julian Lenz def. #57 Ryan Peniston (Memphis), 6-4, 6-2
No. 2 – Andrew Watson (Memphis) vs. #62 Max Tchoutakian, 7-6, 4-2, uf
No. 3 -- #122 Felipe Rios def. Kai Lemke (Memphis), 6-3, 6-3
No. 4 – Chris Patzanovsky (Memphis) vs. Will Little, 4-6, 5-6, uf
No. 5 – Jimmy Bendeck def. Felix Rauch (Memphis), 6-4, 6-4
No. 6 – Shakeel Manji (Memphis) vs. Tommy Podvinski, 3-6, 5-5, uf
Order of Finish: 3, 1, 5