Men’s tennis hosted four matches this week, including two against top-ten opponents Texas and TCU.
On Thursday they hosted a doubleheader against Illinois State and Arkansas Pine Bluff. The Golden Hurricane swept both teams 4–0. The doubles partners of Majed Kilani and Or Ram-Harel, as well as Jared Hing and Daniel Santos, are undefeated in play so far this season.
In the two matches, the Golden Hurricane had five different players win the six singles points that they needed to secure the sweep in both matches. Kilani, Santos, Okkie Kellerman and Chase Gordon all won their individual matches, while Jarod Hing won two for the Golden Hurricane across the two games.
On Friday the Golden Hurricane hosted the No. 4 Texas Longhorns. The match came down to the wire, as the Golden Hurricane took the seventh and final point after Mitchell Pritchard won his match in three sets.
Head coach Vince Westbrook talked about Pritchard’s performance after the win.
“My hats off to Mitch Pritchard, who had to take a year off last year after winning the Cal-Berkeley match for us after having to go into surgery and not being able to play the rest of the year. He seems to be back and doing what he does best. At the bottom of the lineup, I think he’s one of the toughest guys in the country.”
Hing and Santos kept their unbeaten doubles record as they took the first doubles match, as did Kilani and Ram-Harel, who won the second doubles match giving the Golden Hurricane the doubles point.
Ram-Harel, the No. 46 player in the nation, took home the first singles-win for Tulsa, winning 7–6 and 6–2.
Westbrook talked about Ram-Harel’s win as well.
“If you give the guy [Ram-Harel] a ball anywhere in the mid-court, he’s going to punish you with it. He’s a big, strong guy. As he started pressuring in the tiebreaker, he started to serve better and he started to be able to return and put more balls in the court.”
Kilani dropped his first set to No. 36 Yuya Ita, but recovered to win the next two sets. Dominic Bechard, Kellerman and Santos lost their matches, bringing it down to the final match which Pritchard won in three sets.
On Sunday afternoon the Golden Hurricane were swept by No. 7 TCU to close out their four-game home-stand. Next is Kentucky in Stillwater in the ITA Kick-Off.
