Baylor men's tennis sophomore Juan Benitez beat senior teammate Max Tchoutakian to win the Sherwood Collegiate Cup singles title, after partnering with him to claim the doubles crown earlier Monday at the Sherwood Country Club.
In the last match of the tournament, Benitez posted a 6-0, 6-4 victory against Tchoutakian to win the singles crown. Baylor players have now won four Sherwood singles titles overall and two straight with Benitez joining Matija Zgaga (2006), Lars Poerschke (2008) and Julian Lenz (2016).
Prior to their singles match, Benitez and Tchoutakian teamed together for a 7-5 victory in the doubles title match over USC’s Robbie Bellamy and Jake DeVine. The duo is the first BU tandem to win the doubles crown at the event since 2008 when Attila Bucko and Denes Lukacs took home the trophy.
OTHER NOTABLES
Monday marked the first time that two Bears played against each other in Sherwood singles final.
Benitez produced a perfect 5-0 singles record at the event in his first action of the year, winning all of his matches in straight sets, including two wins over ranked foes UCLA’s Joseph DiGuilio (No. 90) and the 44th-ranked Tchoutakian.
The loss for Tchoutakian stops an eight-match winning streak in singles dating back to Nov. 10, 2016. He finished 4-1 at the tournament and now owns a 13-6 singles record on the year.
As a doubles duo, Benitez and Tchoutakian are 5-0, after a 4-0 performance in California. The BU pairing had previously played together once in 2014-15 - another win.
TOP QUOTE #1
“It was a great weekend for us. There was some really tough competition out there. One of our goals was to have one of our guys win it, so to win the singles and doubles was a super way to start the spring season.” - head coach Matt Knoll on winning the singles and doubles titles
TOP QUOTE #2
“When you play eight guys, you never have everyone play their best tennis on the same weekend. We certainly had some guys not play their best tennis, but on balance it was a really, really good performance for our team. We had a bunch of guys do good things and really get better. We accomplished everything we could have hoped to accomplish out there and it was just a super way to get started.” - Knoll on the tournament weekend
WHAT'S NEXT
The Bears will now return to Waco to begin their 2017 dual-match season with a doubleheader. BU will host Incarnate Word and Grand Canyon Saturday, Jan. 21, at 1 and 6 p.m., respectively, at the Hurd Tennis Center.
