The No. 13 Texas A&M men’s tennis team dominated the SEC opener with a 6-1 win over Kentucky at the Mitchell Tennis Center on Friday.
The maroon and white opened the match with doubles points as A&M’s Carlos Aguilar and Barnaby Smith notched a 6-3 win over Cesar Bourgois and Liam Draxl. The Aggie duo of Hady Habib and Pranav Kumar clinched the doubles points with a 6-2 win over Ying-Ze Chen and Alexandre LeBlanc.
In singles, A&M’s Valentin Vacherot claimed a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Liam Draxl. Habib swept Millirn Hurrion, 6-2,6-2. Aguilar racked in a win of 6-2, 6-4 over Cesar Bourgois. Sophomore Noah Schachter clinched a 6-1,6-2 win over Gabriel Diallo. Smith wrapped up a 7-5, 7-5 win over Alexandre LeBlanc to finish the scoring.
Also in singles, A&M’s Pierce Rollings fell to Kento Yamada in a triple set of 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.
“We need to continue to take steps forward this season and improve every time we step on the court,” A&M coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com.
A&M leads the all-time series against Kentucky 8-3, including wins in four of the last five matches.
Last season, the maroon and white defeated Kentucky 6-1 in Lexington with victories from Habib, Vacherot, Smith, Schachter and Marson in addition to the doubles point.
The Aggies’ ranked singles athletes includes No. 3 Vacherot, No. 31 Aguilar and No. 34 Habib.
Vacherot improves to 9-0 in dual match singles play while maintaining the highest ITA singles ranking of any player in the SEC. Habib achieved three straight singles victories while Aguilar remains in the win column with his second straight triumph.
A&M improves to 7-2 against Kentucky since joining the SEC. A&M has notched four straight match victories against the Kentucky Wildcats, dating back to 2017.
With the win, the Aggies improve to 8-3 while Kentucky falls to 9-5 after Friday’s loss.
Next up, the Aggies return to the court on Sunday to compete against Vanderbilt at the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Tennis Center.