Over the weekend, the Texas A&M men’s tennis team competed at the 45th annual ITA Indoor Championships in Madison, Wisconsin. The No. 7 ranked Aggies were able to defeat UCLA, but fell to their other two opponents, Michigan and TCU.
The Aggies failed to secure a doubles point to open Friday’s match, but A&M’s Valentin Vacherot and Noah Schachter managed to beat the Wolverines’ Ondrej Styler and Connor Johnston. Schachter then defeated Johnston in singles play. Michigan’s Nick Beaty defeated A&M’s Stefan Storch in straight sets and A&M’s Hady Habib fell to Andrew Fenty. A&M’s Guido Matson earned his fifth straight win as he defeated Harrison Brown then Carlos Aguilar fell to Styler to end the day.
On Saturday the maroon-and-white secured a 4-1 victory over No. 26 UCLA in the first round of the consolation draw. A&M’s Aguilar and Barnaby Smith had a 6-3 win over the Bruins. Smith’s success continued in singles play over Patrick Zachraj. The Stefan Storch and Pierce Rollins duo were also victorious and won their doubles match 6-4.
“I saw a bunch of fighters out there on the courts today,” A&M men’s tennis coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “We showed a lot of courage after we let that match slip away yesterday. I was really pleased with the way we played in the doubles and that carried on into the singles. I was pleased with the effort and I know the guys played very hard.”
On Sunday, the Aggies lost 4-0 to No. 11 TCU to finish out their play in the tournament.
“We didn’t handle adversity today like we needed to,” Denton said. “They pushed us back after we got ahead early and we did not respond. These are the growing pains we have this season with a new team, we have to learn how to handle the ups and downs of a tennis match.”
The Aggies will be back home in College Station to face Rice at 6 p.m. on Friday at the Mitchell Tennis Center.