Lopes fall in season-opening marathon match

Thursday, January 11

Phoenix, Ariz.

2 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Wichita State

Photo by: Rachel Sollazzo

1/11/2024 6:38:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

GCU's Almasi, Da Silva pick up wins in home match vs. Wichita State

By: Jerob Moon

The Grand Canyon men's tennis team opened the 2024 regular season with a 5-2 loss to Wichita State at GCU Tennis Facility on Thursday.

The Lopes battled rain and weather for most of the afternoon and had to push back the start of the match for three hours. When the courts finally dried, the match was electric from the beginning with five tiebreaker sets across singles and doubles in a dual match lasting nearly four hours.

The Shockers took an early advantage by winning the doubles point after battling for nearly an hour. GCU senior Wyatt Anderson and junior Jonathan Da Silva lost 6-3 at Court 2 but graduate Gerhard Sullwald and sophomore David Wekesa responded with a 7-5 in for the Lopes at Court 1.

For Sullwald, it was his first win in a GCU uniform after transferring from North Dakota over the summer.

The doubles point came down to the second court that featured graduate Pablo Carretero Salvador and Alfred Almasi for the Lopes. The GCU pair tied up the match at 5-5 and forced a tiebreaker after being down 6-5 with a deuce-point winner. The Shockers prevailed in the tiebreaker, winning 7-2 to take the 1-0 lead heading into singles.

Singles was competitive up and down the lineup amid windy conditions. The first two matches to finish were the only ones to end in straight sets with Wichita State defeating Sullwald at No. 1 and Salvador at No. 2, giving Wichita State a 3-0 lead.

Despite their backs against the wall, the Lopes continued to battle on the other courts. Almasi, at Court 4, forced a third set with a 7-6 (7-3) win in his second set and Da Silva prevailed in three sets at Court 5 by 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 scores for the first GCU point of the day.

The pivotal point in the match came with GCU sophomore Paolo Rosati's third-set tiebreaker at Court 6. Rosati tied the tiebreaker at 4-4 but was unable to prevail, losing 7-5 to give Wichita State its fourth point for the team win.

With the dual match clinched by a 4-1 Shocker lead, GCU sophomore David Wekesa lost in three sets while Almasi wrapped up the day with a 5-7, 7-6, 6-3 win at Court 4.

The Lopes will hit the road for the next two matches, facing Eastern Washington and Montana on Feb. 3 and 4, respectively.