The Georgetown men’s tennis team dropped their first two matches of the Big East Championship last Friday and Saturday to Notre Dame and St. John’s, 4-0 and 4-2 respectively. The losses left the Hoyas in competition with DePaul for seventh place on Sunday.
Bert Baggio, one of the Hoyas’ most frequently hyped players, was the biggest disappointment of the weekend. Baggio was the first player to exit the court against DePaul after winning just one game in two sets. He finished the tournament without winning a single match.
The Hoyas were clearly out gunned in the earlier matches against the top-seeded Fighting Irish and fourth-seeded Red Storm, but the contest with DePaul was a close fight. Leading off with the doubles matches, the Blue Demons jumped out to a 1-0 advantage in the contest after taking two of the three matches rather convincingly.
The generally lethal doubles combination of sophomores Ted Tywang and Etienne Paris who went 7-6 on the season while playing together, got stomped 8-1 in their number two doubles match on Sunday.
Paris rallied after dropping the doubles match, however, to stuff his singles opponent, Eric Huffman, in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 and tie the match at 2-2.
“Ted and I had a tough tournament in doubles, it felt like we had glue under our shoes at net and we weren’t coordinating well,” Paris said. “I cruised through my last singles match and tried to pump up the rest of the team from the sideline.”
Tywang was not as fortunate in his singles match. After losing the first set, he battled back in the second to force the match into three sets. He wound up losing the third, however, by a break for a final match score of 2-6, 6-4, 4-6.
“I really fought hard in my match but lost a tough battle in the third set which would have given us the momentum we needed to win the match,” Tywang said.
After losing three straight matches in the tournament to end their season, the Hoyas have a long off-season in front of them. Tywang made it clear that he would be carrying his last loss of the season for some time to come.
“The match is going to be hard to swallow in the off-season, but hopefully the loss will give our whole team incentive to work hard for next year,” he said.
