The Horned Frogs, seeded fourth, dominated their first four matches, beating UC Irvine, Cornell, Duke, and Kentucky to reach the Semifinals. In the Final Four, they faced off against the Ohio State Buckeyes, who had previously defeated them in the 2023 Semifinals and the 2024 ITA Indoor National Championship Final. However, this time, TCU emerged victorious, setting up a title game showdown with another familiar opponent, the Texas Longhorns. Despite having a 1-2 record against Texas during the season, including a split in regular season meetings and a loss in the Big 12 Championship, TCU was determined to claim victory in the final match.
The Championship match opened with TCU taking the early advantage, earning the Doubles Point with top pairs Jake Fearnley and Pedro Vives (6-4) & Jack Pennington Jones and Sebastian Gorzney (6-3) delivering set wins.
Lui Maxted delivered the Frogs’ first Singles victory from Court 4, a dominant performance over ITA top-100 ranked player Pierre-Yves Bailly, storming to a 6-2, 6-4 straight-set win to put TCU ahead 2-0. However the match would narrow in a hurry as the Longhorns took the next two matches, with TCU’s Pedro Vives falling 2-6, 1-6 to No. 40 Gilles-Arnuad Bailly at Court 3 and Tomas Jirousek dropping the showdown with Texas’ Cleeve Harper 3-6, 2-6 on Court 6.
TCU’s Jake Fearnley took the first set over No. 5 Micah Braswell, 6-4 on Court 2, but had some tough points go against him midway through the second set, ceding momentum to Braswell and eventually dropping the final two sets 3-6, 1-6 and giving the Longhorns a lead. The Horned Frogs were against the ropes, requiring wins from both JPJ on Court 1 and Gorzny on Court 5 to bring home the trophy.
Jack Pinnington Jones had already dropped the first set to ITA No. 2 single star Eliot Spizzirri 2-6 and had fallen behind 1-3 in the second set before winning his next two service games and twice breaking Spizzirri to emerge with the 6-4 set win to force a third set. JPJ owned the third set, breaking Spizzirri early on four straight points and again taking advantage of multiple double faults from the Longhorns’ top player to deliver a 6-2 win and evening the contest 3-3.
