Hill, Hsu and S. Tullis help BYU advance in first day of ITA regionals

PROVO, Utah (Oct. 18, 2017) -– Junior Jeffrey Hsu and sophomores Sean Hill and Sam Tullis helped BYU advance in both singles and doubles in the ITA Regional Tournament held at the outdoor courts on Wednesday.

The Cougars competed well against top-seeded players in the singles draw. Hill earned a victory against No. 15 Jack Heslin of Boise State 2-6, 7-5, 6-2. He went on to win his second-round match against Northern Colorado's Connor Finerty 6-2, 6-4.

No. 16 S. Tullis beat Jamie Bautista of Air Force 6-2, 6-0. S. Tullis went on to earn a victory against Boise State’s Ryland Mcdermott 6-1, 6-2. Hsu was victorious over Northern Colorado’s Michael Kritzinger 6-1, 6-0 in the first round of singles play. Hsu then beat Pedro Platzeck of Boise State 7-5, 6-3 in his second-round match. All three Cougars will advance to the round of 32 Thursday afternoon in singles.

Freshman Jacob Tullis beat No. 25 Kostya Nesterenko 6-4, 7-6. He then fell to Luis Flores of New Mexico State 6-3, 6-3 in his second-round match. Freshman Artsiom Ausiyevich lost to Aditya Vashistha of Utah State 7-6, 6-4.

No. 18 senior John Pearce lost to Montana’s Ludvig Hallgren 7-6, 6-4. Freshman Ben Gajardo fought hard against No. 8 Jaime Barajas of Utah State but ultimately fell short 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Junior Matthew Pearce lost to Montana’s Yannick Schmidl 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. Sophomore David Ball fell to Jonathan Morales of SUU 6-3, 6-1.

The BYU players will move to the singles consolation bracket and play Thursday afternoon.

The Cougars had success in doubles Wednesday morning. Hsu and Hill defeated Sean McKendree and Santiago Garcia of Air Force 8-3 in the first round of doubles. S. Tullis and Ball earned an 8-2 win against Paul Hendrix and Jamie Bautista of Air Force. Both BYU doubles teams will advance to the next round Thursday morning.

John Pearce and J. Tullis fell to Air Force’s Isaac Perez and Patrick Sklenka 8-4 on Wednesday morning. M. Pearce and Gajardo made a comeback against Alexander Flink and Rok Sitar of Montana State but ultimately lost the match 8-7 in a tiebreaker. Ausiyevich and Victor Brown fell to Nevada’s Jeremy Merville and Dylan Levitt 8-6 in a close match. All three Cougar doubles teams will move to the consolation bracket and play Thursday morning.

The tournament will continue through Saturday with local Utah teams competing, including University of Utah, Weber State and Utah State.

Daily tournament results can be found here.