WACO, Texas – No. 27 Baylor men's tennis fell in its Big 12 Conference opener on Friday evening at the Hurd Tennis Center to No. 2 TCU, 4-1.
 
The Bears (15-6) won the doubles point from 40^th-ranked Tadeas Paroulek and Luc Koenig at one and Devin Badenhorst and Luc Koenig at two.  
 
THE RUNDOWN
Badenhorst and Koenig struck first with their win at the No. 2 spot on Friday, defeating Jack Pinnington Jones and Tomas Jirousek, 6-4, in quick fashion.  TCU fought back with their win at Three over Christopher Frantzen and Oskar Brostrom Poulsen, 6-4.
 
Court One clinched the doubles point with a ranked win from the ranked-again paring of No. 40 Velcz and Paroulek, 7-5, over No. 51 Duncan Chan and Lui Maxted.
 
The Bears opened up singles with two first sets from No. 74 Velcz and No. 50 Paroulek. The Horned Frogs got up and took the match at No. 3, with No. 57 Vives defeating No. 88 Badenhorst, 6-2, 6-2. The fifth singles court was next as No. 72 Tomas Jirousek beat Koenig, 7-6(3), 6-1.
 
The match was clinched at Court One, as eighth-ranked Pinnington Jones won over No. 74 Velcz, 106, 6-4, 6-4.
 
QUOTABLE
Head coach Michael Woodson
On today's match…
"[Doubles] was interesting actually, because it swung quickly for TCU on One and Three, and very strongly for us at Two. Fortunately for us, I thought we did a really good job battling back on One and evening it. We didn't play great much of the time at One doubles, but they hung around long enough. It's always interesting to get a 4-0 lead at Two. They drop their heads, the other guys don't go away, and then it's close. We couldn't get over the hump at Three, but I thought they hung around long enough to apply a little bit of pressure. We came up with the goods in the end on One and Two. It's always great to be able to sneak the doubles point. We got off to a really slow start in singles. We got down on five courts. Zsombor [Velcz] did a great job starting fast, but we didn't seem to catch fire anywhere else until after about 45 minutes. Fortunately for us, Luc [Koenig] and Teddy [Paroulek] were able to push their sets to the end. Teddy took his, Luc didn't, but we dropped two quick second sets there. Against teams like this, you can't lose matches quickly. Putting yourself in a hole is just too much pressure in the end. Playing those matches down 3-1, though it felt like we could have won them all for sure, it's hard to play like you have to win versus a guy who feels like he only has to win one or two of these. Credit to TCU, they battled hard and played well under pressure. I thought we were doing better. We competed better overall on more courts, but we dropped our heads too much when things weren't going our way at times. That's going to have to be something our guys continue to learn, certainly at the tennis level."
 
On Sunday's doubleheader…
"I know 10 a.m. is a little bit early on a Sunday morning, but I think we have some good giveaways. It should be decent weather, it should warm up pretty nicely for us. [UCF] is 14-1. They're a really good team, an older group that's very talented. It's going to take everything we've got to beat a team like that. It's a great addition to the conference and we're excited to host a team like that. We're going to need all the fans we can get, so hopefully it'll be a good turnout."
 
 
UP NEXT
The Bears host a doubleheader against UCF at 10 a.m. and Prairie View A&M at 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 24.