The ninth-ranked Baylor men’s tennis team continued its winning ways Thursday by defeating UC Santa Barbara, 4-3, at the RecCen Tennis Courts.
For the third-straight match, the Bears lost the doubles point, but went on to recover in singles for the victory.
Facing the country’s sixth-ranked doubles duo of Simon Freund and Morgan Mays, Baylor’s Will Little and Constantin Frantzen dropped a 6-3 decision on court one to open doubles play.
Jimmy Bendeck and Johannes Schretter got the Bears right back in the opening point with a 7-5 triumph over Nicolas Moreno and Anders Holm at the No. 2 spot.
With the focus of the match moved to court three, Juan Benitez and Max Tchoutakian couldn’t close out Cody Rakela and Kristian Prior, falling 7-6(7) to put the Bears in a 1-0 hole.
In singles action, the Bears rolled to three straight-set victories to open up a 3-1 lead in the contest. First, the 15th-ranked Benitez powered past Mays at the top of the lineup, 6-3, 6-2. That decision was followed by the 81st-ranked Schretter’s 6-2, 6-4 victory over Freund at the No. 3 spot. Little put the Bears on the cusp of victory by beating Rakela, 6-3, 6-3 on court five.
However, Baylor had lost the first set on the three remaining singles courts. UCSB was able to only convert one of those early advantages into a straight-set win as Frantzen came up short, 6-4, 7-5, against Chase Masciorini at the No. 6 spot.
Hanging on to a 3-2 lead, Baylor used a three-set victory by No. 35 Tchoutakian to clinch the win. He bested Moreno, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 on court two.
With the match decided, Jimmy Bendeck lost in three sets, 7-5, 6-7(8), 10-8 to Holm at the No. 4 position.
