The New Mexico men’s tennis had a solid outing as the host of the Balloon Fiesta Invitational, taking home one singles title and two in doubles over the weekend.
The squad was unable to field a team of six due to the absence of Hayden Sabatka and Bart Van Leijsen, who were competing at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
New Mexico’s duo, ranked 15th in the nation, won their opening match in straight sets. However, they were knocked out in the round of 16 in their next match by Notre Dame’s Mate Cutura and Vaughn Hunter.
Sabatka and Van Leijsen dominated the second set and surrendered only a single game, but found themselves on the wrong side of both a first set and deciding tiebreaker, 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 1-0 (10-6).
Assistant coach Robin Goodman said he was pleased with the performance of the entire team in the first live action of the fall.
“It was good,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve seen how they compete and how they fight and that’s kind of what we were looking for.”
In Albuquerque, Michael Tran teamed up with New Mexico State’s Simon D’Alfonso in doubles due to the odd numbered roster. The tandem worked together to earn a 3-1 record in their flight, securing a doubles title.
Sean Baklini and Rodolfo “Fito” Jauregui also picked up a doubles win. The pair went a perfect 4-0 in their draw to outdistance the field.
In singles play, Jorge Escutia cruised to a perfect 4-0 record, winning all of his matches in straight sets.
Escutia was up 6-5 in the second set on Sunday, and closed the door to avoid a tiebreaker and win the match against NMSU’s Mauricio Benitez, 6-4, 7-5.
Ricky Hernandez-Tong and Jauregui also had chances to secure singles titles, taking 3-0 records into the final day, but came up just short.
Jauregui suffered his first loss against New Mexico State’s Sergi Espias in a close match, 6-4, 6-4.
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Christofer Gonclaves, also of NMSU, bounced back after dropping the first set to defeat Hernandez-Tong, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Hernandez-Tong said the team had been working really hard in practice, and were finally able to translate those lessons in actual matches.
“We’ve had a pretty tough seven weeks of practice up to now,” he said. “We were really just trying to get as much out of that practice into the match courts as we could.”
The team will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada next to compete in the ITA Regional Championships, where winners can earn an automatic bid to the national championships next month.
Robert Maler is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers cross country, football, tennis and track and field. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @robert_maler.
