April 25, 2015 Complete Results
THE RUNDOWN WACO, Texas - For the fourth-straight year and the 14th time overall, the second-ranked Baylor men's tennis team advanced to the Big 12 Championship finale with a 4-3 victory over No. 6 TCU Saturday at the Hurd Tennis Center.
Baylor claimed the doubles point with wins on courts one and three. The pairing of Felipe Rios and Vince Schneider opened the day with a 6-3 triumph at the bottom of the lineup over TCU's Guillermo Nunez and Hudson Blake.
The Horned Frogs responded with a 6-3 triumph of their own on court two as the 53rd-ranked tandem of Mate Zsiga and Tony Lupieri fell to No. 29 Trevor Johnson and Cameron Norrie.
That left the point to be decided on court one where the 19th-ranked pairing of Julian Lenz and Diego Galeano had a 5-4 lead on No. 20 Nick Chappell and Will Stein. Galeano went on to hold serve at love to clinch the match and the doubles point, 6-4.
The Bears improved to 23-1 in the opening point on the season.
In singles, Baylor jumped up to a 2-0 lead as Galeano cruised past Facundo Lugones, 6-3, 6-3, on court four.
TCU got its first point of the day when 74th-ranked Max Tchoutakian dropped a 6-4, 7-5 decision to 40th-ranked Cameron Norrie on court three.
BU responded with Felipe Rios taking care of Will Stein 7-6(5), 6-1 on court six to put the Bears one point away from the victory.
However, the tide began to turn back in the Horned Frogs favor when the 110th-ranked Mate Zsiga had his eight-match win streak snapped with a 6-1, 7-6(7) loss to Arnau Dachs at the No. 5 spot.
TCU tied the match 3-3 as the 33rd-ranked Lupieri took the opening set, 6-3, before losing his singles contest on court two against the 59th-ranked Nunez, 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-0.
With that result on the board, the match at the No. 1 spot was well into a third set. The top-ranked Lenz had dominated the opening set 6-1 and was serving up 5-3 in the second, before the 53rd-ranked Chappell stormed back, winning the next four games to take the second set, 7-5.
When Lupieri faltered at the No. 2 spot, Lenz and Chappell were tied 5-5 in the third set. Lenz then was broken to fall down 6-5 as Chappell served for the match. However, Lenz got the break to force the third-set into a tiebreaker.
The BU junior jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the seven-point tiebreaker and then went on to claim a 7-1 victory to give the Bears the match and a spot in the event finale.
Keep up with the Bears all season long by following @BaylorMTennis on Twitter.
STAT OF THE DAY
14 - Baylor will be making its 14th trip to the Big 12 Championship finale
HIGHLIGHTS
? Baylor is 35-10 all-time in Big 12 Championship play.
? Baylor will compete in its fourth consecutive conference championship final and 14th overall.
? Baylor is 8-5 in its previous 13 trips to the Big 12 Championship finale, but is looking to repeat as champion for the first time since 2008 and 2009.
? Baylor improved to 18-4 against ranked teams.
? Baylor has won 16-straight matches over TCU.
? TCU still leads the all-time series 31-24, but BU is 19-5 under Matt Knoll against the Frogs.
? Since TCU joined the Big 12, Baylor owns a 5-0 mark in the series.
TOP QUOTE #1
"The mistake that you can make is when you start scoreboard watching and paying attention to stuff like that. You've got to get to four points. We got to three relatively quickly but we just couldn't seem to find that fourth one and that's tennis. You've got to stay focused and keep pushing. I thought TCU really took the momentum there from us for a while and just really played an exceptional level of tennis." - Head coach Matt Knoll on the match
TOP QUOTE #2
"I know they're excited to see us in the final. They just love beating us so we're going to go out and give it another shot and see if we can get over the line." - Knoll on facing Oklahoma in the final tomorrow.
WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor will face No. 1 seed and top-ranked Oklahoma on Sunday in the Big 12 Championship at 12 p.m. The two teams are meeting for the fourth time this season with the Sooners winning all three of the previous matches. Baylor beat Oklahoma 4-3 in the final of the Big 12 Championship last season in Fort Worth, Texas. The match will be broadcast on FOX Sports 2 and FOX Sports GO.
