Men perfect in doubles
Led by the impressive play of its doubles competitors, the No. 44 SMU men’s tennis team captured a 5-2 victory over No. 66 Minnesota at Dallas’ Bent Tree Country Club on Sunday.
The Mustangs (9-2) went 3-0 in doubles competition. Prior to Sunday, SMU had yet to win a doubles match against a ranked team this season.
The SMU doubles teams will get two more opportunities to prove themselves this weekend when they travel to Richmond, Va., for a weekend series. SMU will face No. 33 Virginia Tech on Friday and No. 21 Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday.
SMU was led Sunday by the No. 1 doubles team of Robin Fahgen and Alex Skrypko, who opened the competition with a narrow 8-6 victory over Sebastian Gallego and Raoul Schwark.
The No. 2 team of David Kuczer and Adolfo Solares followed with a 9-8 (4) tiebreak victory over Dino Bilankov and Derek Peterson. No. 3 Oivind Alver and Chris Hooshyar mopped up with an 8-3 victory against Chi-Lang Pham and Pierre Dumas.
The singles teams captured a pair of three-set victories, led by Kuczer at the No. 2 spot.
Kuczer stumbled in the opening set against Bilankov, 2-6 but bounced back for easy 6-2, 6-4 victories in the closing sets.
Alver, competing in the No. 4 slot, gave the Mustangs their second singles victory of the day with a 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Dumas.
Fahgen, ranked No. 50 in the country, lost for only the second time this season at No. 1 singles when No. 46 Schwark defeated him in three sets.
Fahgen took the first set 6-3, but Schwark countered with a tie-break victory in the second set and slammed the door with a 6-4 victory in the decisive third set.
Schwark is the only ranked opponent to defeat Fahgen this season.
Hooshyar, competing in No. 5 singles, narrowly escaped with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Pham, and Taylor St. Eve easily defeated Adam Altepeter 6-2, 6-4 in No. 6 singles.
Women sweep weekend
The No. 60 SMU women were equally as impressive as they defeated a pair of in-state foes over the weekend.
The Mustangs (8-2) opened with a 7-0 shutout of Houston at Highland Park High School on Saturday and blanked Texas A&M Corpus Christi 5-0 at Bent Tree Country Club on Sunday.
SMU dominated Houston in both singles and doubles competition. All three doubles teams won by at least four points, and only one singles match needed a third set.
The No. 38-ranked No. 2 doubles team of Nicole Briceno and Kseniia Tokarieva easily defeated Lynley Wasson and Joanna Kacprzyk 8-3. The No. 1 team of Natalia Bubien and Pavi Francis defeated Lucy Forward and Jordan McCombs 8-4.
Kristen Reid and Jessica Yanoff concluded doubles competition with an easy victory over Leila Salek and Vicky Simpson 8-4.
In singles, No. 73 Bubien cruised by Forward 6-4, 6-2. Competing at No. 6 singles, Briceno dropped the first set to Simpson, 3-6, but bounced back with 6-2, 10-6 victories.
The Mustangs were equally as impressive on Sunday, as they swept the Islanders in both singles and doubles competitions.
Bubien and Francis once again paired at No. 1 doubles to defeat Carmen Abeaboeru and Nina Ciric 8-2. Tokarieva and Briceno followed with an 8-2 drubbing of Erika Iriarte and Alexandra Dyckman. The No. 3 team of Reid and Yanoff doubled up Megan Harless and Alexandra Valarezo 8-4.
Bubien captured her second victory of the weekend at No. 1 singles after defeating Ciric 6-1, 6-3. Francis blanked Abeaboeru 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2 singles, and Tokarieva followed with a 6-0, 6-0 shutout of Iriarte in the No. 3 spot.
Briceno defeated Valarezo 6-2, 6-1 at No. 4 singles. Reid and Yanoff, competing in No. 3 singles and No. 6 singles respectively, did not finish their matches.
The Mustangs will face archrival TCU in Fort Worth on Wednesday before returning home for a duel with Texas Tech on Friday.
