Idaho men’s tennis appeared in its first WAC Championship game following the most difficult schedule in its history. Two singles matches kept the Vandals from a conference crown when Idaho fell to No. 33 Fresno State 4-2 Sunday in the championship match.
In its first meeting against the No. 14 Bulldogs Idaho only won one singles point, losing 6-1.
“To be very close to beating Fresno state … it’s a really good achievement for the seniors and something that the guys that are coming back, they really need to build on,” Idaho Director of Tennis Jeff Beaman said.
The Vandals face all varieties of competition throughout the season, including eight ranked teams. Beaman said the tough schedule was constructed to push the team and strengthen it for a potentially grueling conference schedule. He said he also intended potential-best-player Dmitry Perevoschikov to be in the lineup. Perevoschikov sat the season out, which may be the reason Idaho lost as many games as it did.
“We felt that Dmitry was going to be eligible and that he would have been one of the top players on the team and that we had a chance to beat a potentially top 30 nationally ranked program,” Beaman said. “To accomplish that, we had to get the toughest schedule possible.”
Idaho won the doubles point with victories from the No. 1 and 2 pairings. Jose Bendeck and Cristobal Ramos Salazer winning 8-5 at No. 1 and Abid Akbar and Andrew Dobbs won 8-3 at No. 2.
The Bulldogs won each of the top three spots in singles play and Alan Shin won 7-5, 7-6 at the No. 4 spot, but Fresno took the rest of the points to win the match.
The Bulldogs were heavy favorites in the match, but Beaman said he stressed to the players that they needed to leave it all on the court in the final match.
“They’re a strong team, we’re the underdog, but under pressure if you can get under their skin and pin them down, then there’s always that chance,” Beaman said. “Whether they win or lose, to be able to tell themselves at the end of the match, that they put everything into it and that was their only chance for the every single person in the singles and doubles line ups, to put everything into it.”
Beaman said the rest of the semester will be spent catching up on school work, focusing on finals and meeting individually to set summer tournament and conditioning schedules.
For their efforts, Idaho’s Bendeck was selected to the all-tournament team at the No. 3 singles, along with teammate Ramos Salazar at the No. 1 doubles team.
The Vandals will attempt to build a similarly tough schedule for the next season, Beaman said. Until then, he believes the season was a success.
Nick Groff can be reached at [email protected]