Men’s tennis drops Mountain West opener to Boise State 4-0

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Maxim Verboven swinging racket at the ball. Photo courtesy of UNLV Athletics.

The UNLV Rebels lost to the Boise State Broncos 4-0 in its Mountain West Conference opener at the Fertitta Tennis Complex to make its overall record 8-8 and conference record 0-1 on March 31. 

 “It was a tough one,” Head Coach Owen Hambrook said. “We lost. [It was a] hard pill to swallow.”

To start off the match in doubles the Broncos picked up court one early with Simon Arca Costas and Michael Bott of the Broncos defeating Maxim Verboven and Milos Dabic of UNLV 6-1. 

UNLV evened out the doubles winning 6-4 in court three with Anton Ornberg and Jackson Atherton defeating Ryo Minakata and Jan Lucca Marquardt.

With doubles coming down to court two with Idriss Haddouch and Caden Moortgat of the Broncos starting off with an early 5-3 advantage. Zach Garner and Aaron Bailey of the Rebels picked up a game on court two to cut its deficit to the Broncos five games to four keeping the Rebels alive in the doubles. 

Garner and Bailey’s comeback came short, losing to the Broncos 6-4 on court two. The Boise Broncos entered the singles with a 1-0 point advantage over the Rebels. 

“We needed the doubles point,” Hambrook said. “If we got the doubles, I think we could have done some damage.” 

The Broncos pulled away with the win in singles defeating the Rebels on courts two, four and five. 

The Broncos picked up its second point of the match with a quick win by Costas against Ornberg defeating him in the first two sets 6-3 and 6-2.

The third point of the match for the Broncos was by John Chin, defeated by Dabic on court five  6-3, 7-6, 7-3.

James Van Herzeele closed out the game by defeating Dabic on court four 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 to give the Broncos the 4-0 victory over the Rebels.

 “I think we competed hard on all the courts but Boise is a good team,” Hambrook said. “If we see them again, we’ll be ready.”

In court five, the Bronco’s Chin bested Garner 6-3. The Rebels rallied behind a victory in court two where Ornberg defeated Arca Costas in two back-to-back matches 6-3 and 6-2. Bailey also took a win for the Rebels in court three finishing 6-3 against Moortgat in the first round of matches. 

These wins kept the spirit alive at the tennis complex and gave the Rebels momentum going into the home stretch. However, the Broncos seized on that momentum and won in four of the six courts.

The UNLV men’s tennis team looks to bounce back from its conference opener loss on April 2 against the Utah State Aggies.

“Utah is an altitude team and they return well. We have to be smart when we’re serving,”  Hambrook said. “We match up well with them, we just got to be ready to go.”

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