No. 10 Texas A&M men’s tennis, which was on a five-match win streak, went 1-1 on Sunday, falling to SEC rivals No. 11 Florida and finding victory over UTRGV.
The Aggies move to 8-2 on the season and 3-1 in SEC play. Florida rises to 8-1 (4-0) and UTRGV falls to 3-8.
The day began with the A&M-Florida matchup. The SEC opponents began in doubles play, where Florida got ahead early, earning the doubles point. This was the first time all season that A&M’s men’s team lost the doubles point, winning the first point in all eight games. Despite only winning one of three courts, the No. 48 duo of Carlos Aguilar and Bjorn Thomson continued their winning streak. As a doubles team, they are now 3-0 in SEC play with two ranked wins under their belts.
Singles play followed as the Aggies hoped to chomp away at the 1-0 Florida lead. However, Florida did not let their feet off the gas pedal. A&M went 2-4 as a unit in singles play, locking its first loss since falling to Baylor in early February. With a final score of 5-2 in Florida’s favor, and the Aggies’ win streak snapped, A&M is no longer undefeated in SEC play.
“That doubles point was crucial obviously … I think there was some disappointment there and that put us in a little bit of a different scenario than we have seen this season,” A&M coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “We had not had to play from behind like that and so just something different was the difference today.”
Despite this, there were still bright spots for the Aggies during singles play. No. 13 Hady Habib continued his hot streak in singles play with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Florida’s No. 12 Duarte Vale. This marked Habib’s fourth straight singles match win in SEC play in as many matches. 2-0 against ranked opponents over this stretch, he also has the two highest ranked wins of any Aggie in SEC play. Additionally, A&M freshman Raphael Perot is also 4-0 in SEC play and earned his first career ranked win over UF’s No. 96 Greif in three sets.
Even though the match against UTRGV started an hour earlier than initially planned, the Aggies came in rejuvenated. A 7-0 win moved the Aggies to 1-1 on the day and 8-2 on the season.
Winning on courts 3 and 2 right away, A&M earned the doubles point for an early lead. Playing as a duo for the first time in a match since the TCU Invitational in January, Kenner Taylor and Pranav Kumar won 6-0. Carlos Aguilar and Noah Schachter played their first duos match as partners all year and won as well, 6-1.
In singles, A&M stayed strong going 6-0 with no third sets allowed. Taylor started it off as he won on court 6, his second straight singles victory. This was followed by Kumar on court 5 and Thomson on court 2. Despite mostly playing doubles, Thomson, the Texas Tech grad transfer, improved to 5-1 on the season in singles matches. Next, on court 1, Pierce Rollins won his second straight singles match. Lastly, Schachter and No. 33 Aguilar won their matches to round out the day.
A&M looks to their next match against No. 24 Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss. They face off at 3 p.m. as the Aggies look to get a win streak started back up. The Bulldogs will be A&M’s eighth nationally ranked opponent in its first 11 matches and their fourth in their last five, all of which were SEC teams. The game will take place on Friday, March 5.