The unranked Utah men’s tennis team upset the No. 55 San Francisco Dons 5-2 on Friday in Honolulu, Hawaii, kicking off the 2016 spring season with a statement victory.
Last spring, the Utes finished 11-13 overall and only won a single Pac-12 match. In the fall season, third-year head coach Roeland Brateanu made sure Utah would turn things around. The Utes won five singles titles and five doubles titles during the autumn warm-up season, a drastic turnaround from the way they finished the 2015 spring season.
Brateanu could see his team progressing and felt optimistic about the upcoming spring season.
“We had a very good fall semester,” Brateanu said. “We have a very exciting team. It’s a very young team, full of talent. My expectation from this group is to put us in a position to make the NCAA Tournament. I think we have the capacity to do it, I think we have the talent to do it, and I think we have to depth to do it.”
Utah carried its momentum into the first match of the spring. Despite flying 2,935 miles and spending approximately six and a half hours cooped up in a plane a few days previously, the Utes came out with fire, winning two of their three doubles matches over the Dons.
Seniors Matt Cowley and Jamey Swiggart got Utah’s first win of the day, beating the Dons’ Christian Bockstedt and Tynan Maguire at the No. 2 doubles position 6-4. Sophomore Johan Jonhagen and freshman David Micevski came up clutch in the third and final doubles match, squeezing out a 6-4 victory against Thomas Takemoto and Ryan Marker to lock up the doubles point for the Ute netters.
At No. 4 singles, the Dons avenged their lost doubles point as Marker beat Swiggart in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1 to tie the match at 1-1. Utah rallied with Santiago Sierra and Jonhagen winning the No. 6 and 5 matchups, respectively. Sierra defeated Woravin Kumthonkittkul of San Fran 6-2, 6-4, while Jonhagen followed suit, beating Maguire in straight sets, 7-6(2), 7-5.
Up 3-1, the Utes didn’t let off the gas. The Dons won their second and last point in the No. 1 singles spot after Nils Skajaa beat Cowley 6-7(5), 7-5, 10-6 in a tight match. But Egbert Weverink took care of business in the No. 2 match against Takemoto, winning Utah another point with a 4-6, 7-6(6), 1-1 ret win. Micevski beat Vasco Valverde in straight sets, 7-6(4), 6-4 at the No. 3 singles positions to add more to the cushion.
“I can’t ask much more from my guys,” Brateanu said. “I’m incredibly proud of our accomplishment today. This was a complete team effort.”
With the victory, the Utes improve to 1-0 on the Spring 2016 season and move to 26-21 under Brateanu. They beat their fourth nationally-ranked opponent with the wins over the Dons.
Utah gets a day off in Honolulu on Saturday before hitting the court on Sunday at the home of the Warriors, the UH Tennis Complex, to face the University of Hawaii. The match kicks off at 3 p.m. MST.
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