MALIBU — Zach Fuchs and Wally Thayne earned a straight-set win to advance to the quarterfinals of the ITA Fall Championship sectionals.
Fuchs and Thayne earned a top-10 win as they took down the No. 10 team in the nation from the University of Washington.
“Always great to pick up a top-10 win,” said BYU head coach Zack Warren. “That was a tricky opponent and a tough first round matchup, but Zach and Wally came out strong and maintained a high level throughout both sets.”
The match was close from the beginning. With the No. 10 Huskies and No. 11 Cougars clashing, there wasn’t much separation on either side. The Cougars were able to earn their first break of the match early in the first set and never looked back. After a tight set BYU went up 1-0 with a 6-4 first set.
The competition level would continue as neither team was able to get much ground on the other. Both teams traded punches and held serve throughout the second set. This led to a tiebreak to decide the second set. The Cougars got out to an early lead in the tiebreak and rolled all the way through. They would go on to win the tiebreak 7-1 and earn their spot in the Quarterfinals in Malibu.
“Tomorrow we play Cal (University of California at Berkeley),” said Warren. “We have played them before and know it is going to require us to be at our very best.”
BYU will play the California pairing of Derrick Chen and Timofey Stepanov who are coming off a tight three-set win in the first round. The match will be played at 11 a.m. MT on Friday.
“Thank you to the Cougar faithful, who were in full force today in Malibu, such great support. Let’s go Cougs,” said Warren.
Limited matches will continue to be streamed at this link. Click here for results.