Lubbock, Texas - The Tigers fell to No. 41 New Mexico and No. 17 Texas Tech Friday in the season opening matches at the Texas Invitational. The Tigers posted three individual victories and a pair of doubles wins on the day.
Sem Verbeek cruised to a win at the first position over New Mexico's Hayden Sabathka, 6-0, 6-4, while Daniel Alameh posted a 6-3, 7-5 decision over UNM's Jorge Escutia. But Bart Van Leijsen topped No. 124 Miguel Diaz, 6-3, 7-5 while Rodolfo Jauregui topped Jose Chamba, 6-2, 6-4 and Augustus Ge picked up a 6-4, 6-2 win over Kumara Pardha Adavelly, 6-4, 6-2. Alex Giannini's match against Michael Tran went unfinished as the Lobos took the dual match 4-2.
New Mexico earned the doubles point as Sabathka and Van Leijsen posted a 6-4 win over Verbeek and Alameh, while Escutia and Tony Hernandez won 6-1 over Giannini and Adavelly.
Against the No. 17 ranked and host Red Raiders, Alameh posted a victory over No. 35 Alex Sendegeya, 6-2, 6-4. But No. 8 Felipe Soares topped Verbeek after winning a first-set tie-breaker, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2. Chambra fell to Jolan Caileau, 7-5, 6-0, while Adavelly was topped 6-2, 6-1 by Connor Curry. Bjorn Thomson turned in a 6-1, 6-4 win over Giannini.
The Tigers won the doubles point as Alameh and Giannini bested Sendegeya and Thomson, 7-5 and Bernardo Oliveira and Lance Ngo downed Curry and Stodart, 6-2. Verbeek and Chamba were locked up in a tight battle with No. 2 Hugo Dojas and Soares, trailing 5-6 when their teammates completed the wins.
"Today was a great way to open the season; This is why we are here: to battle against some of the best teams in the country," head coach Ryan Redondo said. "We lost two close 4-2 matches. We were up in the third sets so these were very close. New Mexico and Texas Tech played tougher then we did but to our credit we gave ourselves the opportunity. We took the dubs point vs Tech at 2 & 3 while Sem and Jose were up 6-5 on the #2 team in the country when they had to stop. We got up in three matches very quickly and just need to weather the storm a bit better. We have Arizona tomorrow and we'll need to be better in our composure and discipline to improve and get on the board here."
Pacific faces Arizona 9 a.m. PT before meeting Texas Tech again at 1 p.m. PT.
