No. 12 Baylor MT Beats No. 9 Florida State, 4-2

[Pirtle, Colin]

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – Jan. 28, 2023

No. 12 Baylor MT Beats No. 9 Florida State, 4-2
The Bears advance to ITA Indoors for the 12th-straight time
For more information contact: Colin Pirtle; 940-564-0351, colin_pirtle1 at baylor.edu<mailto:colin_pirtle1 at baylor.edu>


WACO, Texas – The No. 12 Baylor men’s tennis team battled in front of a standing room only crowd at the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center on Saturday night.



Baylor (5-1) struck first by winning the doubles point and then singles points on three and five before fighting for the clinch point between third-set tiebreaks on courts two and six.



THE RUNDOWN



The Bears continued their undefeated doubles streak at home, clinching the point behind Finn Bass and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi’s 6-3 win on one over Barnaby Smith and A. Cornut-Chauvinc, and Tadeas Paroulek and Zsombor Velcz’s 6-4 win on two over Maks Silagy and J. Dous-Karpenschif.



Ethan Muza and Luc Koenig’s match was left unfinished while the Seminoles had a 5-2 lead.



In singles, the Bears turned to ole reliable on court four for the first doubles point, as Marko Miladinović got win No. 5 this spring, 6-1, 6-1 over FSU’s Andreja Petrovic. Velcz also upped his singles win count to five, defeating Jamie Conel on five 7-6(3), 6-3.



Seminoles got two points from a win from No. 12 Cornut-Chauvinc, 6-4, 6-2, over No. 23 Bass, and No. 24 Youcef Rihane over No. 115 Grassi Mazzuchi, 6-3, 6-4.



The final points came down to tiebreaks on courts two and six. The Bears kept their undefeated streak in kick-off play alive with Paroulek clinching the match on court two, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, beating Loris Pourroy.



Muza was also close to a win in his tiebreak on six, leaving his match unfinished with only a few points to go before the win,



HIGHLIGHTS

  *   Baylor is 24-0 in ITA Kickoff Weekend.
  *   BU extends its home win streak to 13.
  *   The Bears move to a 5-1 doubles point record.
  *   BU is 5-0 when they win the doubles point.
  *   Baylor now leads the all-time series against Florida State 5-1.
  *   No. 59 Velcz/Paroulek are undefeated in doubles at 5-0.
  *   Marko Miladinović and Zsombor Velcz lead the Bears in singles wins, with their tally updated to five this spring.



STAT OF THE GAME

24 – Matches won consecutively by the Bears in ITA Kickoff Weekend



QUOTABLE

Head coach Michael Woodson

On winning the doubles point…

“We saved seven points in a row, basically, and then broke, and then held on a point to win it. I’ll say, since I’ve been in high school, I’ll never run around on the court firing up people, but this time I felt like there was an incredible crowd out here and they’re dying to get behind us and we needed somebody to have a spark – that’s normally doubles. But they got down, they weren’t playing great, and so I thought when we got those breaks, they responded amazingly. It was an incredible effort from the guys, start to finish.”



On a quick start to singles play with Marko…

“We really challenge him, because he can be results-oriented, and he can be striking the ball-oriented. He’s a high-level player as we all know, but he played an incredible match against Virginia. He didn’t say a word, the whole time. Nothing. And if you scream, if you get fired up with all the other guys, I think you might’ve won that match. But we’re going to do it now, we don’t care. Hit every ball out and yell. This was a big change from who he was on the road and who he was today. You wouldn’t recognize him. Just an incredible effort, he’s been playing amazing tennis since the end of September, but to see him compete like this is what’s starting to stretch some scores.”



On the mental toughness of the team…

“They love each other more than any other team in the country. I would go as far as to say that. So when we talk about how it’s going to get hard somewhere, and things aren’t going to go exactly as expected, you have to keep going. Off the court, stay focused. On the court, stay focused. Doesn’t matter if you’re 6-0, 5-0, keep fighting. Stay out there as long as you can, and we saw that. Ethan’s match, that won us the match, to make us feel like we aren’t just down a point. Nothing like what happened where Marko put a quick point on the board happened against us, and I feel like that’s some court pressure that ultimately gets us over the fence.”



WHAT’S NEXT

The No. 12 Baylor Bears welcome Michigan to Waco Feb. 3 at 6 p.m.



- BaylorBears.com -

_________________________________________
Colin Pirtle | Associate Director of Athletics Communications (T&F, XC, MTEN)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 940-564-0351

[signature_2230589939]<http://baylorbears.com/>

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