Photograph by Miya Tanner of Texas Student Media
Longhorn Evan Burnett makes quarterfinals after second-round upset
Thursday’s singles matches at the Greenview Development & Majestic Realty Men’s Pro Tennis Open were mostly routine – until fourth-seeded Patrick Maloney and Tadeas Paroulek brought the drama on Court 5 at the Texas Tennis Center.
Maloney saved a match point at 4-5, 30-40 when Paroulek hit an uncomplicated backhand volley into the net. Maloney never looked back as he won the last three games for a 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 victory. It was the only second-round match to get three sets, lasting 3 hours and 1 minute.
“I thought the conditions were pretty tough and pretty windy,” said Maloney, a 24-year-old from Oyster Bay, N.Y. “And he’s a really quick player and a fast player, so I was trying to come to the net when I could and keep the rallies relatively short.
“I just did some good serving towards the end, and I was able to get through it.”
Maloney next faces No. 8 Pierre-Yves Bailly, the defending champion who was a 6-2, 6-2 winner over qualifier Marko Mesarovic. Bailly was the more laid back of the two players while Mesarovic, who grew up in Austin, pumped himself up after any victorious point – there just weren’t enough of them against the more experienced Longhorn senior. The two exchanged breaks early in the match, but at 2-2 Bailly pulled away and won the next eight games.
Evan Burnett, another Longhorn, upset top-seeded Toby Kodat, 6-3, 6-4. Burnett, an 18-year-old redshirt freshman from California, rallied in the second set to avoid a third, not a small consideration because his first-round match took almost three hours. His second set on Thursday took 58 minutes.
While Mesarovic struggled in his Clemson shirt, his teammate Romain Gales (equally decked out in Tiger purple) was a 6-3, 6-0 winner No. 7 Nathan Ponwith, who received treatment on his injured left knee for the second straight day.
Sixth-seeded Stefan Destanic, a 23-year-old Southern California alum, was a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Cleve Harper, the Canadian who starred here at the University of Texas at Austin.
Second-seeded Duarte Vale of Portugal was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Nathan Anthony Barki. In Friday’s quarterfinals, he will face fifth-seeded Max Basing of Great Britain, who defeated wild card Alex Finkelstein, 6-4, 6-2.
In the doubles quarterfinals, the top-seeded but unrelated team of Cleeve Harper and Patrick Harper defeated Burnett and Maxwell Smith, 6-4, 3-6, 10-3 in the championship tiebreak. In Friday’s semifinals, Harper and Harper will face third-seeded Ty Gentry and Ilgiz Valiev, who were 6-3, 7-6(2) winners over Curzio Manucci and Tomas Tischner.
In the other men’s quarterfinals, Bailly and Stefan Dostanic defeated Gales and Viktor Markov 3-6, 6-3, 10-4. They will face the American team of Rohan Belday and Austin high schooler James Quattro, who advanced on a walkover over the A&M team of Luke Casper and Giulio Perego. – Emily Rather