The No. 14 Texas A&M men’s tennis team was victorious in its first home match of the season, shutting out the SMU Mustangs by a score of 7-0 on Friday, Feb. 2 at the Mitchell Tennis Center. The Aggies were 4-0 coming into the home opener and did not disappoint the A&M faithful.
Despite the poor doubles performance in the last matchup against No. 20 Georgia, A&M was right back to business on the court, earning the point in three sets.
The Mustangs took the first match as senior Adam Neff and graduate Huntley Allen defeated the Aggies’ European duo of junior Giulio Perego and sophomore Togan Tokac, 6-2.
A&M did not let the earlier falter of form hurt it, as the Maroon and White won the next two matches to get the point. The first victorious squad of Fightin’ Farmers included juniors Luke Casper and JC Roddick, who defeated SMU’s redshirt junior Maks Silagy and senior Julian Steinhausen, 6-2.
Finally, the French combination of senior Raphael Perot and freshman Tiago Pires defeated the SMU team of freshman Trevor Svajda and sophomore Jerry Barton, 7-5. Their win put A&M up 1-0 heading into singles play.
It was all Maroon and White from there as every A&M player won their first set of singles play. The first to claim victory was Perot, who soundly defeated Svajda 6-0, 6-3.
The next win went to Pires, who topped junior Louis Cloud 6-4, 6-4. The victories for Perot and Pires put them atop the team in individual wins with both men having four on the season. Pires is off to an extremely hot start as he remains undefeated on the year at 4-0.
Clinching the win for the Aggies was No. 93 Casper, who defeated Silagy after a close first set, 7-6, 6-1. The highest-ranked A&M player looks to have a standout performance in his junior campaign.
With the three remaining matches all going in favor of the Aggies, Tokac was victorious in three back and forth sets against senior Liam Krall 6-4, 3-6, 10-7.
Next, No. 109 Roddick defeated SMU’s highest-ranked player in No. 88 Neff in just two close sets, 7-5, 7-6. This ranked win can help Roddick when the next update of ITA rankings are released.
Finally, Perego sealed the sweep for A&M, defeating No. 98 Barton in three sets, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.
The win secured A&M its first sweep of the season. The Aggies are back in action at the Mitchell Tennis Center on Tuesday, Feb. 6 as they welcome the Abilene Christian Wildcats with first serve set for 3:30 p.m.
