Gonzaga University
No. 69 Arizona
Zags Fall to Ranked Arizona Squad
1/31/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
TUCSON, Ariz.--The Gonzaga University men's tennis team showed some fight Sunday but took just one point away from the 69th-ranked Wildcats at LaNelle Robson Tennis Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Freshman Jordan Smith claimed Gonzaga's point with a singles win on court No. 2. The Sydney, Australia native won his first set 6-4, but opponent Harry Busby took the second by a 3-6 tally. In the third set super tiebreak, Smith bounced back and won the race to 10 points, taking the match 6-4, 3-6, 1-0 (4). The win was his 10th of the 2015-16 season and kept him at a perfect 3-0 in dual play. It's also his first career win against a Pac-12 player.
Gonzaga nearly nabbed another point in doubles play. The Wildcats began the doubles competition with a sweep on court No. 3, but Emilio Moreno and Ruadhan O'Sullivan evened the tally with a 6-4 win at No. 2 doubles. The Zags' top doubles pair of Smith and Hayden Smith also won six games, but Arizona's tandem of Naoki Takeda and Shoki Kasahara took that match in a tiebreak, giving the Wildcats the doubles point.
Smith's singles match was the only contest to go three frames, but that wasn't for the lack of trying by the Bulldogs. At No. 6 singles, Moreno nearly forced opponent Oliver Plaskett into a third set. Plaskett took the first frame 6-2, but Moreno stormed ahead in the second, coming within a game of set victory at 4-5. Plaskett bounced back to take the match in two at 6-2, 7-5, however. Also, at No. 4 singles, senior Vicente Varas took eight games off Trent Botha, but Botha won the match 6-4, 6-4.
With the loss, the Bulldogs drop to 2-1 on the year while Arizona, tied for 69th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's national rankings, climbs to 3-3. Gonzaga now will return home to begin conference play on Saturday, Feb. 6. That contest, a showdown against No. 72 Pacific, will begin at 11:00 a.m. Pacific in The Stevens Center.
