Men’s tennis rolls over Tulane, USF match cancelled

By Jack Wallace

Published Feb 27, 2019

TCU defeats Tulane 4-3 in a gritty match and has their USF trip cut short due to heavy rain. Photo by Jack Wallace

TCU men’s tennis began its weekend with a 4-3 win over the No. 30 Tulane Green Wave and was unable to finish the match against the South Florida Bulls due to inclement weather, leaving the match unfinished.

Frogs Ride Green Wave to Strong Win

TCU started off its road trip in New Orleans, taking on Tulane in the Frogs’ first outdoor match since defeating UT-Arlington on Feb. 2.

The doubles matches were highly competitive, as the No. 26 Bertus Kruger/Reese Stalder team won 6-4, followed by a 6-4 loss by TCU’s top doubles team of Alastair Gray/Alex Rybakov. The duo of Luc Fomba/Sander Jong clinched the doubles point 6-3.

The No. 1, 2 and 3 singles players on the team each won their respective matches, as No. 83 Kruger, Fomba and Jong all fell to split the singles matches 3-3.

Senior Alex Rybakov remains a top-10 player nationally, the highest-ranked TCU player this season. Photo by Jack Wallace

Gray continued his strong play, defeating No. 70 Luis Erlenbusch. The other ranked-on-ranked matchup went the Frog’s way with another straight-set win by senior No. 6 Rybakov over No. 88 Ewan Moore.

The win pushes TCU to a 7-3 record on the season, and a win over the ranked Tulane squad, especially on the road, should help the Frogs quest to have a fourth-consecutive top-10 finish.

“Windy conditions, tough conditions, a good team,” head coach David Roditi said. “I thought we were gonna get crushed by the Wave, and instead we’re surfing, we’re riding that wave out of town with a 4-3 win.”

Rain Drowns out Bulls and Frogs

A torrential rainstorm blew into Tampa and rained out the match between TCU and USF, resulting in a scratch and no record for either side.

The Frogs were up 3-0 by the time the rain came in, with wins by Gray, Stalder and Kruger. Every TCU player won their first set, and both Jong and Rybakov were tied in the second set.

“I feel like our guys learned on this trip. We got slightly better on this trip,” Roditi said in a twitter video following the match. “It was really good tennis, a good match, but then Mother Nature got us.”

Up Next:

Tennis returns home for the first time in almost a month against the Rice Owls for an all-day match Saturday, March 2, and then against No. 11 Illinois the following day. Both matches will be played at Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center.