NCAA Men's Championships- College Station, TX
The ASU men’s tennis team wrapped up its first full season since 2008 with a 4-0 defeat at the hands of the No. 18 Baylor Bears on Friday morning in College Station, TX.
Baylor took the upper hand on the Sun Devils from the get-go, beginning with doubles competition.
Junior Johannes Schretter and freshman Akos Kotorman combined to take down the ASU pairing of senior Michael Geerts and freshman Tim Ruehl by a final of 6-2 in one of the first matches of the day.
Redshirt junior Will Little and sophomore Constantin Frantzen would also go on to set down freshman William Kirkman and sophomore Pierre Louis Dodens by a score of 7-5.
As for singles play, Baylor had three matches that resulted in a 4-0 victory against ASU. ASU freshman Benjamin Hannestad, sophomore Makey Rakotomalala, and Ruehl all fell in their respective matches, and that ultimately ended the day in defeat for the Sun Devils.
Nonetheless, Baylor has proven to be a strong team, and in ASU’s first return to action in 10 years, the Sun Devils showcased themselves on a national level, being ranked within the top-15 in the country at one point in the season.
Additionally, not all hope was lost for one individual on the Sun Devils’ roster.
Although Geerts fell in his doubles match, the ASU senior will showcase himself in the NCAA Singles Championships, which begins on May 23 at Wake Forest University.
NCAA Women's Championships- Athens, GA
On the women’s side, the ASU women’s tennis team ended its season with a 4-2 loss against Wake Forest.
On the doubles courts, ASU took just one of three matches against the Demon Deacons, with the lone Sun Devil victory coming from the pairing of senior Nicole Fossa Huergo and freshman Sasa Klanecek. Fossa Huergo and Klanecek won their match 6-3, but the other two went to Wake Forest.
The ASU combination of freshman Lauryn John-Baptiste and sophomore Ilze Hattingh fell in a highly-touted match between two of the best doubles pairs in the country, with the Sun Devil tandem squaring off against the Wake Forest duo of sophomore Chandler Carter and junior Emma Davis.
The match went down to the wire, but the Demon Deacons ultimately came out on top courtesy of a tie-breaking point, and the defeat was just the second time all season that John-Baptiste and Hattingh sustained a loss.
In the slate of singles matchups, ASU freshman Tereza Kolarova won her match with Wake Forest sophomore Alexis Franco. Klanecek won as well, but Wake Forest would go on to close things out by winning two more matches after the score was knotted up, and that would put the finishing touches on ASU’s season.
While the team’s season may have drawn to a close, the pairing of John-Baptiste and Hattingh will represent the Sun Devils later this month for the NCAA Doubles Championships in North Carolina.
Reach the reporter at atbell1@asu.edu or follow @AndrewBell7 on Twitter.
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