Men’s tennis stumbles in Virginia for first two losses


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The No. 6 Trojans suffered their first two losses the season as the men’s tennis team fell short to No. 2 TCU in the quarterfinals Saturday and No. 10 Wake Forest in a consolation match Sunday in the ITA Men’s Team Indoor Championships.

The losses followed a win in the first round over No. 13 USF Friday to advance in the tournament.

Against TCU, Max de Vroome lost a three-set battle that ended with a 7-3 defeat in the final set tie-break, giving the Horned Frogs a 4-3 win.

“I’m proud of our effort tonight,” USC head coach Peter Smith said. “It was one of those college tennis matches that you love being a part of. TCU did a great job down the stretch to get the win.”

The Trojans started off with an early lead in the match as de Vroome and Jack Jaede defeated Hudson Blake and Reese Stalder with the final score of 6-4 on Court 2 and Rob Bellamy and Jake DeVine topped Guillermo Nuñez and Alex Rybakov on Court 3 with the final score of 6-3.

At singles, the Horned Frogs started off with two wins on Court 1, where No. 6 Cameron Norrie defeated the Trojans’ No. 33 Nick Crystal 6-1, 6-2, and Eduardo Nava dropped only 3 games in his 6-3, 6-0 win over USC’s No. 43 Logan Smith.

The Trojans reclaimed the lead thanks to Thibault Forget, who won in straight sets on Court 5, and Jack Jaede, who came back and won 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 after dropping the first set at sixth singles to TCU’s Trevor Johnson.

On Court 3, No. 38 Nuñez took three sets to overcome No. 104 Jake DeVine. TCU eventually notched the fourth point and punched the ticket for the semifinal when No. 122 Alex Rybakov battled back after losing the first set against de Vroome and finished the match with an epic 6-7, 7-5, 7-6 win. 

On Friday, USC was able to pull out a 4-3 win in the first round against USF. After losing the doubles point, the Trojans went down 0-2 after Peter Bertran defeated Laurens Verboven on Court 5 with the score of 6-2, 6-1.

USC tied the match at 2-2 thanks to de Vroome and Smith, as they both won in straight sets. Roberto Cid gave the lead back to the Bulls as he defeated Nick Crystal on Court 1 with the final score of 6-3, 6-2. On Court 2, de Vroome upset No. 26 Dominic Cotrone in straight sets.

With the score tied at 3-3, all the attention shifted toward Court 6, where Forget was tied 1-1 in his match against Vadym Kalyuzhnyy. After the winning the tie-break in the first set, Forget dropped the second set 6-1. Feeling the pressure on him, he pulled out a 6-2 win in the second set, giving the Trojans their sixth win of season.

On Sunday, in the consolation match, the Trojans lost 4-0 to Wake Forest. After losing the doubles point, the Crystal, de Vroome and Smith recorded three losses on Courts 1, 2, and 4, respectively, stopping the play on the other courts.

USC is now 6-2 on the season. The next competition will take the Trojans to Palo Alto, where they will face Stanford on Friday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m.