FORT WORTH, Texas – The No. 75-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team (18-6, 5-0 Summit) finished its season with a 0-4 loss at No. 2-ranked/No. 6-seeded TCU in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship on Friday evening.
Just prior to the match's scheduled start, a brief rain shower delayed play for about 45 minutes. Play went uninterrupted the rest of the way, allowing the dual to be held outdoors as planned.
Denver, which was making its third consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament, showed fight from start to finish, though the host team proved too much for the Pioneers.
Doubles:
A pair of 6-2 wins on the top two doubles courts handed TCU a 1-0 overall lead to begin the dual. In both cases, the TCU pair grabbed an early break before stretching to a 5-2 lead.
At No. 3 doubles, senior
Raffaello Papajcik and freshman
Aaron Beduhn remained on serve all the way through the first eight games and sat tied at 4-4 when the match was abandoned.
Singles:
TCU secured the match with straight-sets wins on the Nos. 1, 4 and 6 courts. Each of those first sets saw the host-team player break quickly to open play and claim at least one additional break to get halfway to the win. The second sets for both Nos. 1 and 6 singles followed similar patterns, but Denver graduate student
Connor Robb-Wilcox tried to reverse the trend with the start of his second set. With a couple service holds, he kept the set on even terms at 2-2, but TCU's Oliver Bonding got what would be he critical break in the fifth game and ultimately broke again in the final game.
Among the unfinished matches, sophomores
Samuel Rovai and
Theo Coats saw similar patterns in their results at Nos. 2 and 3 singles, respectively. Coats gained a couple service holds to start his match while Rovai settled in after giving up his serve early, and neither were able to get the break back in their first sets. In the second set, Coats had broken back for 2-2, and Rovai kept things tight at 1-2.
Senior
Ryoma Mishiro battled through a back-and-forth first set and won his first set – the only Pioneer to do so. The first eight games all went to the server before TCU's Albert Pedrico broke for 5-4 and attempted to serve it out, but Mishiro got the immediate break back. He would break for a second consecutive time in the 12
th and final game to finish off a three-game win streak to close the set. The second set was just two games deep and tied at 1-1 when it was abandoned.
