Concluding its run at the ITA Texas Regional Championships Presented by Oracle, the Baylor men’s tennis team took home a pair of consolation titles Sunday at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center.
Freshman Constantin Frantzen was the last man standing in the singles consolation draw with two more victories on the final day of action, while partnering with sophomore Jimmy Bendeck to capture the doubles consolation crown as well.
Frantzen and Bendeck opened the day by downing Abilene Christian’s Jonathan and Joshua Sheehy, 8-5, in the doubles consolation semifinals. The BU duo was scheduled to face Lamar's Michael Feucht and Sebastian Santibanez in the finale, but the Cardinals’ twosome withdrew giving the title to the Bears.
In singles consolation action, Frantzen opened his day with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over TCU’s Gianni Mancini in the quarterfinals, before taking down ACU’s Jonathan Sheehy in the semifinals. The BU freshman was slated to play Texas Tech’s Bjorn Thomson in the draw’s final, but he withdrew, which handed the crown to Frantzen.
Later in the day, Bendeck suffered a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Texas’ Yuya Ita in the singles main draw quarterfinals. He was 3-1 over three days of singles play in the main draw.
NOTABLES
Bendeck is now 11-2 in singles action on the year.
Frantzen owns a 6-3 record in singles play and has won four straight.
At the event, Baylor athletes played a combined 21 singles matches and five doubles contests, going 13-8 and 3-2, respectively.
TOP QUOTE #1
“This weekend gave us the opportunity to get a lot of matches in and that is what we need. Jimmy (Bendeck) has continued to improve. He didn’t play his best tennis in the match today, but he learned a lot. I think all our other young guys learned a lot. It was super valuable for all of the team and really positive.” - head coach Matt Knoll on the weekend
TOP QUOTE #2
“We always try to have a goal for our guys to play 10 matches in the fall and we have some guys that have played more and some that have played less. We are going to look at it and make sure some of these guys get some more tennis under their belts before we get to the end of the fall season.” - Knoll on the rest of the fall
WHAT'S NEXT
Sunday’s action wrapped up Baylor’s participation in the ITA Texas Regional Championships. Next, select Baylor student-athletes will be in action at the Birmingham Futures event in Birmingham, Ala., starting Oct. 31.
