Sooners Narrowly Edged by No. 2 TCU

No. 2 TCU

No. 9 Oklahoma

2016 Stats

FORT WORTH, Texas – The ninth-ranked Oklahoma men's tennis team narrowly fell to No. 2 TCU 4-3 on Friday night in Fort Worth, Texas. The Horned Frogs won the final singles match in a tiebreaker to secure the one-point win.

“I'm really proud of my team's effort tonight,” head coach John Roddick said. “We battled hard and just came up literally one point short. Give TCU a lot of credit, they fought us off and earned that win. We are going in the right direction and are looking forward to Texas on Sunday.”

TCU jumped out to a 1-0 lead after doubles with wins on courts one and two. Freshmen Andre Biro and Max Mora led their match on court three 5-0 when play was halted.

That lead wouldn't last long, however. The Sooners leveled the match at 1-all when Alex Ghilea topped Eduardo Nava in straight sets. Ghilea was dominant in the win, giving up a just one game in the first set and shutting out Nava in the second. The win pushed Ghilea to 7-4 on the year.

Bragusi kept the Sooner momentum going with a win of his own on court five. The junior bested Jerry Lopez 6-2, 6-3 to give Oklahoma its first lead of the day and pick up his seventh win of the season.

On court one, senior Axel Alvarez squared off with No. 3 Cameron Norrie. The Sooners' ace won in straight sets to put OU up 3-1 and just one point from the win. The victory, the highest ranked of the year for Alvarez, puts the senior just one singles win shy of tying Oliver Lorin's program record for career singles wins (115).

TCU came all the way back to tie the dual at 3-3 with wins at No. 6 and No. 2 singles. Junior Andrew Harris, who was making his 2016 singles debut, fell to No. 16 Alex Rybakov at the two spot. Harris, who had been dealing with a knee injury, hadn't played singles since OU's loss to Virginia in the 2015 NCAA final 11 months ago.

With the match tied at 3-all, Spencer Papa was locked in a third set with No. 61 Guillermo Nunez on court three. Papa and Nunez traded breaks in the third frame before heading to a decisive tiebreaker. In the breaker, Nunez jumped out to a quick 4-1 lead and ultimately won 7-3 to clinch the win for TCU.

The Sooners are back in action on Sunday as they continue Big 12 play in the Lone Star State. OU will take on the 17^th-ranked Longhorns of Texas at 1 p.m. in Austin, Texas.

For more information on Oklahoma Men's Tennis, follow the team on Twitter at @OU_MTennis.

RESULTS

DOUBLES

1. ^#82Stadler/Blake def. ^#40Alvarez/Harris - 6-0
2. Johnson/Nunez def. ^#85Papa/Ghilea - 6-1
3. Biro/Mora vs. Norrie/Rybakov- 5-0 DNF

Order of finish: 1, 2

SINGLES

1. ^#32Axel Alvarez vs. ^#3Cameron Norrie - 6-2, 6-4

2. #16 Alex Rybakov def. Andrew Harris - 7-6, 6-4

3. ^#61Marco Nunez def. ^#59Spencer Papa - 6-3, 5-7, 7-6

4. ^#51Alex Ghilea def. Eduardo Nava - 6-1, 6-0

5. Florin Bragusi def. Jerry Lopez - 6-2, 6-3

6. Trevor Johnson def. Andre Biro - 6-3, 7-5

Order of finish: 4, 5, 1, 6, 2, 3

RESULTS

DOUBLES

SINGLES

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Florin Bragusi

Alex Ghilea

Andrew Harris

Spencer Papa

Sponsors

University of Oklahoma Athletics