When the No. 11 Texas A&M men’s tennis team woke up yesterday morning, the ominously dark skies let loose with heavy rain and thunder that did their worst on the A&M Tennis Center, but it being Texas, the weather changed fast. By the time the Aggies hit the court after an hour and a half delay, it was a perfect day for tennis, proving that not even Mother Nature could keep the Aggies from pushing their current home winning streak to 12 games.
The men posted a pair of shutout wins, first putting away Northern Arizona University 6-0 and then finishing the day’s work in similar fashion, defeating Wichita State University 7-0.
” We played some energy in doubles, and if you look across the board in singles I think we did a good job,” said A&M Head Coach Tim Cass. “I was pleased tonight with the energy across the board, everyone really showed up to play.”
Once play finally started after the rain delay, the Aggies hit the ground running.
After skipping doubles play and heading straight into singles competition, A&M put down Northern Arizona in straight sets, with the exception of a loss in the first set of junior Khaled El Dorry at court four and freshmen Cameron Fenner at six. Both came back to win their respective matches to complete the shutout.
The nightcap against Wichita State was a similar story. The Aggies jumped out to a lead against the Shockers in the doubles portion of the match. The No.18 duo of senior Ryan Newport and sophomore Lester Cook set the tone against the Shocker’s team of sophomore Carol Contente and freshman Ramirez. The Aggie pair put away the visitors in eight quick games, in a match that took just more than half an hour.
Newport and Cook were soon followed by the Aggie duo of sophomores Ante Matijevic and El Dorry, finishing up the important doubles point with an 8-2 win over their Shocker counterpart. The Aggie men completed the sweep two minutes later when freshmen John Nallon and Matt Loucks won, 8-2.
Once the sun set, the temperature slowly dropped, but the Aggie men managed to maintain their momentum. The excitement of the night came at court one in the match between Aggie All-American Newport and freshmen Marko Despot from Wichita State. Newport gained a quick lead in the match, putting Despot away 6-1 in the first set, but Despot was not content to go quietly. After a bit of trash talk, much to the vocal crowd’s delight, and a brief rally by Despot to start the second set, Newport put a quick end to the contest with a decisive 6-3.
“He was making something happen out there,” Newport said, ” You have to give him credit because he was down, but he was trying to help out his teammates and help out himself, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I felt I was in control of the match.”
Newport’s win on one was followed short after by Cook completing his own straight set win on two. The Aggies clinched the match moments later when El Dorry finally put away freshman Angelo Manns by a score of 6-1, 6-4. The match ended with the Aggies shutting out the Shockers 7-0.
The wins pushed the A&M overall winning streak to seven games heading into a match against No. 19 Alabama this Saturday at home.