The Washington men's tennis team lost 4-1 to No. 12 Baylor to close out the ITA Indoor Championships on a sour note.
The Huskies came out on a much stronger note in doubles, winning the first match from the pairing of Mitch Stewart and Piers Foley 6-3. The Bears bounced back as Kawika Lam and Enzo Sommer lost 6-4.
This put the point on the shoulders of senior Jake Douglas and freshman Alexis Alvarez. This was the duo's first match together, as head coach Matt Anger put Alvarez in for freshman Jack Davis after a rough 6-2 loss yesterday in doubles and the fact that Davis felt a little under the weather.
The new team pair did a fantastic job holding serve, but they were matched on every service game by Baylor, and this led to a tiebreaker where the Dawgs ultimately fell 7-5.
It was a major improvement over the last two days, but it was still not the doubles result the team was looking for.
“I’m really disappointed that we didn’t come out on top,” Anger said. “While there are some things we could do better, what I loved tonight from start to finish was just how hard our guys were playing and how hard they were fighting. They were bleeding purple out there”
That fight was evident in singles as four of the six matches went three sets. The other two were a 6-3, 6-3 loss by sophomore Amit Batta and a 6-2, 6-4 victory by Stewart over No. 24Johannes Schretter.
The tight matches were indicative of the whole evening overall. In two of the matches the Huskies took the second set to force the third and in the other two, they lost the second set.
“It was a very even match,” Anger said. “I think there were some opportunities that we could have taken advantage of more, but the other team could probably say the same.”
The night was ended within a few minutes when junior Sebastian Hawken lost 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in a tough fought match for another Husky not feeling 100 percent tonight. Junior Enzo Sommer broke serve to keep his match alive late in the third set but immediately dropped serve and lost 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.
The Huskies will look to forget about this weekend and get back on track on Feb. 24 at 4 p.m. against Seattle at the Nordstrom Tennis Center.
Reach reporter Kyle Gehler at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @KyleGehler
