SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Andrey Goryachkov and the No. 65 BYU men’s tennis team defeated the Santa Clara Broncos 4-3 on the road in West Coast Conference action Friday.
"I have great respect for our fellow WCC tennis programs; they're all good teams and every match is fiercely competitive," BYU head coach Brad Pearce said. "Today's match was no different. We had to dig deep for the win, but I was proud of the team effort."
BYU (15-5, 4-1 WCC) took the doubles point for an early 1-0 lead. Jeremy Bourgeois and Keaton Cullimore quickly swept the Broncos team of Ashot Khacharyan and Max Heerinckx 6-0. They were followed by teammates Shane Monroe and Goryachkov defeating Connor Garnett and Robert Seby 7-5. John Pearce and Jacob Sullivan’s match was suspended at 5-5 against Santa Clara’s Kamram Khan and Andrew Gu, as BYU had already clinched the point.
Bourgeois kept the momentum going from doubles play into singles action. After Pearce dropped his match to Gu, Bourgeois defeated Khan in three sets, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, to give the Cougars a 2-1 advantage. Monroe fell to Khacharyan in three sets to put Santa Clara even with BYU at 2-2. However, the Cougars would win the next two points. Sullivan defeated Sebastien Mathieu 3-6, 7-6, 6-2 and Goryachkov clinched the win for the Cougars when he beat Garnett 7-5, 3-6, 7-5. Santa Clara falls to 9-10, 2-3 in WCC play.
The Cougars will be back in WCC action tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. PDT at San Francisco.