DALLAS, Feb. 21, 2020 – USF men's tennis suffered its first conference loss of the season this afternoon against SMU, 5-2. Due to weather, action was played indoors at the SMU Tennis Complex in Dallas.
 
No. 40 USF (5-3, 0-1 AAC) began the day with a doubles set loss on courts three and one, respectively. Juan Jose Bianchi and Jan-Simon Vrbsky of SMU topped Ivan Yatsuk (Minsk, Belarus) and Sergio Gomez Montesa (Valencia, Spain), 6-3. Ethan Leon and Carles Sarrio won the doubles point for the Mustangs against Jakub Wojcik (Delray Beach, Fla.) and Rithvik Bollipalli (Hyderabad, India), 7-5.
 
Despite beginning singles with a one-point disadvantage, Yatsuk earned the first point on court five against Gardiner Perotti, 6-3, 6-1, bringing his season record to 5-1.  
 
SMU (9-4, 1-1 AAC) picked up the next three courts to secure their first conference win of the season. Jordi Redelijk defeated Antonio Muniz-Hidalgo (Barcelona, Spain) on court four, 6-3, 6-3, and Ethan Leon swept court three against Pierre Luquet (Draguignan, France), 6-2, 6-1. Carles Sarrio clinched for the Mustangs on court two against Wojcik, 6-3, 7-6 (4).
 
The match played out with Chase Ferguson (Melbourne, Australia) winning on court one over Caleb Chakravarthi, 7-6 (2), 6-4. The win was too late for South Florida but marked Ferguson's 21^st career win.
 
Vrbsky brought the final score to 5-2 with a win against Bollipalli on the sixth court, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
 
 
Quotable

Head coach Ashley Fisher on today's loss…
"Full credit to SMU for playing hard and executing well. They are improving all the time and their coaches are doing a great job. We just haven't been paying enough attention to details day to day and have to look at this as a wakeup call we need consistency in approach to training and off court behavior and when we get that right we have a chance of doing the things we agreed we want to do. No question we have been knocked down and now it's up to us to respond and get back in the ring."
 
Up Next
 
The Bulls stay in Texas to face No. 12 TCU at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center in Fort Worth. Match-time is set for 1:30 pm EST.
 

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