Griz rebound to beat Vikings in Portland

Sunday, March 17

Portland, Ore.

10 AM (MT)

Montana

Portland State

Fernando Perez of the Montana Grizzlies celebrates after winning a singles match during a tennis match against the Grand Canyon Lopes at PEAK Racquet Club on February 4, 2024 in Missoula, Montana.

Photo by: Tanner Ecker/University of Montana

3/17/2024 2:42:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana men's tennis team bounced back to take a much-needed Big Sky Conference road win at Portland State, rebounding from a narrow loss in doubles to beat the Vikings 4-3 at the Tualatin Hills Tennis Center in Beaverton on Sunday morning.

The win improves Montana to 9-5 on the season and 1-1 in league play with two key players returning as the Griz got their first D-1 win in the last six outings while suffering through a rash of injuries. Portland State drops to 4-7 and 1-3 in Big Sky play.

The match started about as close as possible with the Grizzlies falling short in the doubles round as two deciding matches both went to a tiebreaker. UM then came out strong in singles and dominated the top of the lineup, leading to four straight set wins on the top four courts.

Montana put the momentum squarely in its favor in singles with Baltazar Wiger-Nordas and Tom Bittner losing a combined three games on courts one and two. After a win from Guillermo Martin on court four, Fernando Perez returned to health and clinched the match for the Griz on court three with a second set tiebreaker.

"If you would have told me we were going to lose the doubles point and five and six, but leave Portland with a conference win I wouldn't have believed you," said head coach Jason Brown.

"It was great to seize momentum after losing the dubs point, but we've just got to get a lot better. How much we can improve from the middle of March to the middle of April will define our season. I'm glad we can win and learn, because usually you have to lose to learn."

In doubles, the Griz started the round ahead with a 6-2 win for Perez and Martin on court one over PSU's Semerak/Mathiasen pair.

The lead wouldn't last long, however, as Vikings Andrea Brignacca and Luka Jovanovic pulled out the first tiebreaker over Wiger-Nordas and Moritz Stoeger 7-6 (4) to tie the round at one win apiece.

In the decider, Bittner and Chris Zhang also narrowly missed out on a win. They built an early lead to go up 5-3 with the serve but ended up losing to PSU's Edwards/Kusznski pair 7-6 (5) in another tiebreaker that put the Vikings up 1-0 in the team score.

Moving to singles, Bittner returned to his winning ways after losing his first match of the season against the Portland Pilots on Friday. The sensational Grizzly sophomore improved to 10-1 on the year after breezing past Brignacca on court two 6-0, 6-2 for the first UM win of the day, tying the team score 1-1.

PSU would then retake the team lead for a short time when Zhang fell to Simon Kuszynski on court five in straight sets 6-2, 6-3, putting the Vikings up 2-1.

Soon after, Wiger-Nordas tied the match again with a dominant win on court one over Jovanavic, who had just yesterday beat Gonzaga's No. 1 player. The Grizzly sophomore gave up just one game in a 6-1, 6-0, sweep that squared the team score 2-2.

Having dealt with his own injury issues this spring, Martin won the third singles match for the Griz, hanging on to beat Hembo Mathiasen 6-2, 6-4, to put UM up again 3-2.

It was only fitting then that Perez, who just a week ago was forced to serve underhand while nursing a shoulder injury, would clinch for Montana. The former Big Sky Player of the Week returned to form, beating Jan Semerak in a second set tiebreaker 6-3, 7-6 (4) after being down in the breaker to put the Griz up for good 4-2.

"Really impressive from the Spanish guys and Baltazar and Tom at one and two, they're playing like a couple of super sophomores. They were really on one today - just playing pro level tennis right now. They never let their opponents in the match," added Brown.

Despite a narrow loss in his first set and a win in the second, freshman Dragos Bucurescu was UM's only other loss of the day, falling to Hayden Elliott 7-5, 2-6, 6-2, to make the final score 4-3 in favor of the Griz.

Montana now prepares to head to Boise for one final nonconference set of matches before league play begins in earnest. The Griz are one of six teams traveling to Boise State for an invitational duals tournament to cap spring break March 22-23.