Utah Tennis Upsets No. 20 Arizona To Close Out Pac-12 Play

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah tennis team closed out the Pac-12 regular season Sunday afternoon with an upset over the No. 20-ranked Arizona Wildcats. The match was extremely competitive through its entirety and the Utes had just enough to take the win after collecting four singles wins.

Utah started the day with doubles play that had little separation. Geronimo Busleiman and Mathias Gavelin traded games back-and-forth until the Wildcat duo managed to take the final two and the match 7-5. The top two courts built early leads, but couldn't finish it off as Arizona tied the courts back up. Franco Capalbo and Luis Flores were competing in a tiebreaker, but it went unfinished as Francisco Bastias and Slava Shainyan dropped two-consecutive games to fall 7-5 on court one.

Trailing 1-0, Utah was able to take four first sets to get singles going. On court five, Gavelin tied the match at 1-1 after he rallied for a 6-4 win in the first set although being down 2-4 to start, which was then followed by a 6-3 win to end his match in straight sets. The next point came from court three when Shainyan pulled out a 7-5 first-set win, along with another tight set in the second where he went on to win 6-4.

Capalbo took a 6-3 first set win after leading the whole way on court one, while his second set eventually was headed to a tiebreaker. He battled No. 63-ranked Jonas Ziverts and with the tiebreaker squared away at 4-4, Capalbo rattled off three straight points to take the win and push the Utah lead to 3-1.

The remaining courts were all in three-set matches with Utah needing just one more victory to clinch the match. Busleiman trailed early in his third set, while Bastias and Bruno Krenn built an early lead. Busleiman was down 4-0, but managed to rally and tie the set at 6-6. His comeback efforts ran short in the tiebreaker where he eventually fell to No. 15-ranked Gustaf Strom.

Krenn's opponent surged from behind on court six and squeezed out a 7-5 win in the third to quickly add another point and have the match tied 3-3.  With the match in Bastias' hands, he pulled through after splitting his first two sets and took the 6-3 three-set victory to clinch the upset over Arizona for the team.

Utah will return to non-conference play next Thursday, Apr. 15 against San Francisco at the Eccles Tennis Center. Utah and San Francisco will have the first serve come at 12 p.m. MT. Then, Utah will head to Provo, Utah to face BYU on Saturday, Apr. 17.
 
Utah 4, #20 Arizona 3
Singles (5,3,1,2,6,4)
1. Franco Capalbo (UTAH) def. #63 Jonas Ziverts (ARIZ) 6-3, 7-6 (7-4)
2. #15 Gustaf Strom (ARIZ) def. Geronimo Busleiman (UTAH) 6-1, 1-6, 7-6 (7-1)
3. Slava Shainyan (UTAH) def. Filip Malbasic (ARIZ) 7-5, 6-4
4. Francisco Bastias (UTAH) def. Alejandro Reguant (ARIZ) 1-6, 6-3, 6-3
5. Mathias Gavelin (UTAH) def. Carlos Hassey (ARIZ) 6-4, 6-3
6. Herman Hoeyeraal (ARIZ) def. Bruno Krenn (UTAH) 4-6, 7-5, 7-5
 
Doubles (3,1)
1. Carlos Hassey/Jonas Ziverts (ARIZ) def. Francisco Bastias/Slava Shainyan (UTAH) 7-5
2. Luis Flores/Franco Capalbo (UTAH) vs. Herman Hoeyeraal/Filip Malbasic (ARIZ) 6-6 (1-2), unfinished
3. Nick Lagaev/Jett Middleton (ARIZ) def. Geronimo Busleiman/Mathias Gavelin (UTAH) 7-5