Six down, two to go. Six players advanced to the quarterfinals of the Greenview Development & Majestic Realty Men’s Pro Tennis Open 2023 on Thursday in spite of early afternoon rain that shut down play for the day.
The matches at the Texas Tennis Center started at 9 a.m., an hour earlier than other days, because of threatening weather. Fifth-seeded Ed Winter eased past qualifier Luc Koenig, 6-1, 6-2, to beat the raindrops, which started to fall a little before 11 a.m. As courts and their lines became slicker, matches slowly stopped on all six South courts except for Court 1. Elliot Spizzirri was up match point, 6-3, 5-3, 15-40, as his match continued, much to the annoyance of third-seeded Yassine Dlimi. In fact, other players and officials all turned to watch the only court in action as Dlimi won the next point before the match was stopped.
Play resumed about 45 minutes later, with Dlimi reaching deuce before Spizzirri, above right, closed out the game and the match by finally breaking his serve to win, 6-3, 6-3.
No. 4 Learner Tien continued his dominance over Trevor Svajda, winning 6-4, 5-7, 10-1 in the championship tiebreak that was used in lieu of a full third set. Tien had defeated Svajda in the U.S. Boys’ 18 championship in August. Three other players won in championship tiebreaks after losing the first set: sixth-seeded Duarte Vale over Tyler Stewart by 10-7, Colin Markes over seventh-seeded Mark Whitehouse by 10-6, and Micah Braswell, the defending champion, over eighth-seeded Joshua Sheehy, 10-4.
Siem Woldeab won the opening set 6-1 over top-seeded Federico Agustin Gomez when the rain postponed play for the rest of the afternoon. The match between second-seeded Blaise Bicknell and Pierre Yves Bailly never got on court, nor did the three scheduled doubles matches.
Article and photograph by Bevo Video Productions, a division of Texas Student Media at UT-Austin’s Moody College of Communication.