HOUSTON—Aggie Junior Ore will play for the singles championship against TCU’s Nick Chappell on Sunday at the Rice/MET Indoor Tennis Tournament held at the Downtown Club at The Met in Houston and Ore and teammate Behzad Minavi will compete for the doubles crown against the TCU duo of Arnau Dachs and Orlando Superlano at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
“I am really proud of both of our players,” Aggie men’s tennis head coach Steve Denton said. “Junior has picked up right where he left off last spring and I could not be more proud of Behzad. He has had a great tournament despite falling in the semifinals to Chappell from TCU. His confidence should rise with his play this weekend.”
Ore, a junior two-year letterman from Gaithersburg, Maryland, faced Dylan Tozier, a senior with Rice, in the opening round on Friday and won 6-1, 6-0. In Ore’s second match on Friday, the lefthander disposed of Alex Ferrero of Portland, 6-3, 6-2. In the quarterfinals, Ore took down Arnau Dachs of TCU, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 and then defeated Rice’s Adam Gustafsson, 6-3, 7-5, in the semifinals on Saturday to reach the championship match on Sunday.
Minavi, a sophomore from Houston, opened singles play with a 7-6, 6-4 win over Rice’s Peter Frank and then took down Ratan Gill from Portland, 6-3, 7-6 to advance to Saturday’s matches. In the quarterfinals, Minavi made quick work of Jonathan Chang from Rice, 6-0, 6-2 but dropped the Saturday semifinal match to TCU’s Nick Chappell, 6-3, 6-2.
The Aggie duo received a bye in the first round of doubles play and then defeated TCU’s Will Stein and Facundo Lugones, 8-7, on Friday. In the semifinal match on Saturday, Ore and Minavi outlasted the home duo of Philipp Seifert and Leif Berger of Rice, 8-7. The Aggies will face the doubles team from TCU of Dachs and Superlano.
The Aggies, ranked No. 26 in the pre-season ITA poll, will begin dual match play next Saturday, Jan. 19 in Dallas as they face the SMU Mustangs at 11 a.m. and then face Nicholls State at 4 p.m.