After opening the season with a 7-0 loss to Washington, the Idaho men’s tennis team rallied with wins over Pacific and Seattle University to end the opening weekend 2-1 overall.
The Vandals are No. 57 in the nation and finished the opening weekend strong with a 4-3 win over No. 75 Pacific and a 6-1 win over Seattle University Saturday. The Vandals return to the courts this weekend to face Oregon, Missouri-Kansas City and Portland in Eugene, Ore.
The Vandals lost the first two of the three doubles matches against Pacific and lost the doubles point, but the match was far from over. The Vandals got wins from Marius Cristea, Abid Akbar, Jose Bendeck and Cesar Torres to take four of the six singles matches, giving Idaho the 4-3 win. The two singles matches Idaho lost went into the third set and both ended 6-4.
Director of Tennis Jeff Beaman said he was happy with the performance, especially after hard matches the day before.
“We had a lot of guys who were sore from the day before, but after losing the doubles point I was impressed at how all six singles players went out and competed to the very end, whether they won or lost,” Beaman said.
Later that day the Vandals faced Seattle Uand beat the Redhawks in dominating fashion. The Vandals swept the doubles matches and lost just one singles match to take the 6-1 victory.
“Overall to start the year 2-1 with that amount of tennis against quality teams, to get out of there with two wins is a positive,” Beaman said. “We’re looking forward to next weekend. It’s going to be another grueling drive out there and three matches in a weekend against three quality teams.”
The season is still young and Beaman said he’s still getting a feel for what he wants to do with his team. Idaho only got one doubles point on the weekend and Beaman said that’s an area he might play around with the lineup.
“Right now it’s probably going to take the first three weekends of matches to figure out what direction we want to go,” Beaman said.
It was a long, hard weekend of tennis and Beaman said his team was physically drained afterward. He said the team will have light practices early this week before picking up the intensity to get ready for another weekend of tough matches in Oregon.