Things did not go quite as planned for the Idaho men’s tennis team during a pivotal weekend in Western Athletic Conference competition.
No. 75 Idaho fell 4-3 to WAC foe Texas-San Antonio at Lewiston on Friday. Idaho (20-6) dropped to 4-1 in the WAC and lost its top spot to Denver in the conference standings. With the No. 1 seed in the WAC Championships on April 26-28 out of reach, Idaho still earned a No. 2 seed thanks to an odd turn of events.
Idaho was scheduled to play Denver on Sunday but the match went unfinished after the two teams played to a 3-3 tie. Idaho coach Jeff Beaman said the match went long and Denver decided to let it go unfinished so they would have time to catch a scheduled flight back home. Denver, 5-0 in conference play and 9-11 overall, will have the No. 1 seed and a bye during the first day of the conference championships. Idaho will also have a bye with the No. 2 seed, which will be of great benefit to a roster that is trying to get healthy, Beaman said.
“We’ve got injuries at a lot of key spots,” Beaman said. “We get some practice in with the off-day, but we also get that one more day to get healthy and that one less match. So it worked out well.”
Beaman was still
disappointed with the result of the UTSA match and losing momentum going into the conference championships.
“You wouldn’t call it a bad match but it’s something that (Idaho’s players) have played better,” Beaman said. “For us to do well at the conference tournament, you got to have everybody showing up every day.”
Idaho started strongly against UTSA by cruising to a victory in the No. 3 and No. 2 doubles matches to get the point. Sophomores Dmitry Perevoshchikov and Cesar Torres earned an 8-3 win at
No. 3 while senior Abid Akbar and junior Jose Bendeck rolled to an 8-1 win at No. 2. Bendeck and sophomore Cristobal Ramos Salazar lost 8-4 at No. 1.
It was during singles that the victory slipped away from the Vandals. Senior Marius Cirstea played in his first match since he injured his knee on April 1 against Texas-Arlington. He lost a hard-fought match at No. 3 after winning the first set 7-6, then falling in the second and third set 6-1, 6-4.
“He was clicking, but mentally in singles where you have to move more, you have to mentally stay focused and confident for much longer periods of time, it was a roller-coaster,” Beaman said. “He certainly had his ups and downs and it was just unfortunate that he was not able to play (Sunday). But he got one match in before the conference tournament and a little more time to keep healing.”
After Cirstea’s match, Bendeck lost his first singles match in 13 competitions when he fell to Tyler Brown in two sets at No. 4. Akbar provided one of the few highlights for the Vandals when he gutted out a two-set win at No. 2 by a score of 6-4, 7-6 (12-10). Then the Roadrunners clinched the win when Martin Ayala defeated Perevoshchikov in three sets at No. 1 and David Kelleher beat Salazar in two at No. 5. UTSA
improved to 3-1 in conference play and 12-10 for the season.
Idaho has lost four of its last six matches and three of those losses have come against unranked opponents. Beaman said the team can sometimes become complacent against schools they are expected to beat and that complacency showed against UTSA.
“You can say on paper we were the favorite going into that match and it seems that at times when we’re the favorite, we don’t show up the same,” Beaman said. “Some of these guys, I guess, like to be the underdog.”
He said being the No.
2 should be a strong
motivator.
“It would be nice to be the No. 1 seed, but it seems with the mental makeup of some of these guys, maybe being the underdog is a good position to go in with,” Beaman said.
Idaho will wait to see who it draws as the Vandals’ first opponent in the WAC Tournament. Their first match will be on April 27 in Denver.
Anthony Kuipers can be reached at [email protected]