TCU Takes Out Kentucky to Advance to ITA Indoor National Championship

Sunday, February 19

Chicago, IL

Noon

TCU

Kentucky

TCU Takes Out Kentucky to Advance to ITA Indoor National Championship

2/19/2023 8:14:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

Horned Frogs face Texas at noon on Monday for all the marbles

CHICAGO – TCU is one win away from reaffirming its place atop the college tennis world.

The third-ranked Horned Frogs took out No. 2 Kentucky 4-2 on Sunday inside the XS Tennis Village to punch the program's second straight ticket to the ITA Indoor National Championship.

TCU, which captured its first-ever national title in 2022, is the first defending champion to appear in consecutive indoor national championships since 2011. The Horned Frogs joined Illinois, Stanford UCLA, USC and Virginia as one of just six programs to notch a return trip to the grand finale of indoor tennis as a defending national champion.

"What a college match," head coach David Roditi said. "We had everything. High level tennis, highly competitive teams. Two well-coached programs, semi-professional level players just going back and forth. We're fortunate to be on the winning side today. I felt our guys did such a good job of continuing to reset mentally and not allow all the noise to be a deciding factor. All our players were pushed to their limits, and as a coach, I love how we responded to it on every court."

TCU moves on to face in-state rival and No. 6 seed Texas for all the marbles at noon CT on Monday.

The Horned Frogs had ample motivation on Sunday on top of earning the right to play for their second straight national championship.

The match billed itself as a battle of the unbeatens, for starters. The Wildcats sported a 12-0 record entering the tilt while the Horned Frogs record shined a spotless 10-0.

Kentucky remains the last program to defeat TCU as well. The Wildcats upset the top-seeded Horned Frogs 4-3 in the quarterfinals of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Coincidentally, the match took place in the Windy City.

Exactly three decades had passed since the Horned Frogs last downed the Wildcats. TCU picked up its first win over the Kentucky since Feb. 20, 1992, when associate head coach Devin Bowen anchored the Frogs' squad.

Needless to say, TCU avenged its 2022 setback to the Wildcats under the brightest of lights.

TCU won the doubles point via victories on courts one and three. The Horned Frogs then cemented their return to the grand finale of the indoor tennis season with triumphs in the second, fifth and sixth singles flights.

Yet final score does not accurately reflect how tightly contested the match manifested as.

TCU trailed for the first time in doubles all season. The Wildcats' tandem of Joshua Lapadat and JJ Mercer got the better of TCU's Sander Jong and Jack Pinnington 6-2 on court two.

But in typical TCU doubles fashion, the Horned Frogs had an answer.

Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives rolled to their sixth straight win in the No. 3 flight, besting Kentucky's Liam Draxl and Jaden Weekes, 6-3, to even the score at one doubles set apiece.

Gorzny and Vives boosted their season record to 8-1 with the performance.

As such, the doubles point was decided on court one, where Jake Fearnley and Luc Fomba squared off with the Alafia Ayeni and Taha Baadi. Ayeni and Baadi briefly led 4-3 over their TCU counterparts – the preseason ITA No. 1 doubles team. Fearnley and Fomba, though, closed hard, claiming the final three games to punctuate a 6-4 win and give TCU an early 1-0 match lead.

Fearnley and Fomba boosted their 2023 doubles record to 7-1. Their effort also extended TCU's program-record doubles point streak to 13 matches.

Gorzny put TCU within two points of the finale as the match transitioned to singles play. He swept Weekes 6-2, 6-3 on court five.

The freshman improved his season singles record to 8-0.

The dual was hardly decided, however. TCU and Kentucky split the first six singles sets.

Kentucky halved its deficit when Draxl, No. 45 in the ITA singles rankings, got the upper hand against the 17^th-ranked Fearnley in the No. 1 flight, 7-6, 6-4.

The remaining four head-to-heads then went to decisive third sets.

Fomba, the No. 49 singles player, battled No. 66 Ayeni on court two. They alternated 6-4 results, with Fomba winning the opening frame.

Pinnington got the nod at No. 3 vs. the Wildcats' highest-ranked singles player in No. 16 Lapadat. He fell 2-6 in the first set but reversed the score in the following frame to gridlock the contest.

Jong fell on court four to Baadi in a 7-6 first frame but got the better of his foe in a set two tiebreaker.

Roditi substituted Tomas Jirousek in for Lui Maxted as TCU's No. 6 singles player. Jirousek, affectionately nicknamed 'The Bulldog,' returned his head coach's confidence with a 6-4 set one win over Cosnet, No. 57 in the ITA singles rankings. He dropped a 3-6 second set to ratchet tension onto the streets of Chicago's south side.

Fomba delivered an emphatic set three triumph over Ayeni with a come-from-behind 6-4 set three win to put TCU one point shy of the finals. The win was his second in 2022-2023 over Ayeni, as he rolled over the Wildcat in the round of 16 of the ITA All-American Championships in October.

Pinnington fell 6-2 in set three to Lapadat to render the action to courts four and six. He won two of his last three games, though, thereby allowing Jong to extend his match and buy Jirousek – who led 4-3 at the time Pinnington's match went final – more time.

Jirousek promptly earned the match-clincher via a 6-3 end result.

"Jack Pinnington," Roditi said, "him being a rookie, he doesn't realize how much he helped by extending his match and allowing the other matches to finish. One day he will, and I'm proud of his fight. When you win a match like that, it goes without saying that every win was critical. Sander Jong winning that second set may have been the most critical part of the day. Couldn't be prouder of his fight. Now, we get to change our flight, and stay an extra day. Go Frogs."

Doubles Results