TU Men's Tennis Tops Oklahoma State 6-1

The No. 24-raned University of Tulsa men's tennis team topped No. 74 Oklahoma State Wednesday in Tulsa 6-1.

Tulsa opened the dual with a sweep of all three doubles matches, including an 8-4 victory from the No. 4 duo of Clifford Marsland and Ashley Watling against the Cowboy duo of Rifat Biktyakov and Vlad Bondarenko at the No. 1 spot.

TU junior Grant Ive and freshman Alejandro Espejo made it a clean sweep after they topped Eric West and Chris Haworth 8-6 on the second court.

No. 89-ranked Watling gave Tulsa a 2-0 advantage after he took down Haworth 6-1, 6-2 on the third singles court.

Jackson defeated Alejandro Carstens 6-1, 6-1 from the sixth court, and Ive clinched the team victory with a 6-2, 6-4 triumph over West at the fourth flight.

The Cowboys lone victory came at No. 1 singles when Bondarenko scored the upset victory against No. 83 Japie De Klerk. De Klerk took a highly contested first set, 7-6, winning the tie breaker 7-2. Bondarenko evened the match with a 6-4 second set victory and took the victory in a 10-4 super tiebreaker win.

Espejo defeated Horstmann 6-4, 6-1 from the fifth court, and No. 93 Marsland won 6-2, 6-4 over Biktyakov at the second position to give TU its six points.

The Cowboys record dipped to 7-10 on the season after the loss, while the Golden Hurricane improved to 11-8.

Tulsa returns to action at 11 a.m. April 7 at Case Tennis Center while Oklahoma State plays April 13 against Texas Tech in Stillwater at 1 p.m.