In a battle of Top 25 teams, the Texas A&M men’s tennis team defeated the Tennessee Volunteers 6-1 Saturday afternoon at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
With the win, the No. 20 Aggies improve to 10-3 on the season (4-0 SEC), while the No. 25 Volunteers move to 10-3 for the season (1-2 SEC). A&M has now won their last 7 matches, including their first 4 matches of SEC play.
“We are a third of the way through the season and we have got a lot of good tough tennis ahead of us, but I really like the way our team is playing,” Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “When you have a young team, how are they going to react on the road and how are they going to handle adversity and we’ve done that pretty well so far against two real good teams this weekend. We have had different guys step up and it’s been a complete team effort to get us to where we are right now.”
The Aggies opened up the match by securing the doubles point. After Tennessee’s Scott Jones and Adam Walton victory on court two, A&M responded on court one, with Barnaby Smith and Juan Carlos Aguilar defeating Preston Touliatos and Timo Stodder 7-5. Hady Habib and freshman Alex Vedri followed that up by winning their match 6-4, giving A&M a 1-0 lead in the match.
Following his win in doubles, No. 58 Smith extended A&M’s early lead with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Toutliatros. This win marked The sophomores ninth win of the spring and his tenth in 11 matches. Down 2-0, Tennessee proceeded to win their lone point of the match, with Stodder defeating Aguilar 6-1, 6-1.
Holding onto a one point lead, the Aggies closed out Tennessee in the four remaining matches. Habib defeated Walton 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to extend the Aggie’s lead, before No. 128 Vedri defeated Pat Harper 7-5, 7-6 to clinch the victory for A&M. Once the victory was in hand, freshman Noah Schachter and junior No. 38 Valentin Vacherot finished the match with victories of their own.
With the win, A&M extends their current regular season winning streak against the SEC teams to 18 straight, including 4-0 this season. A&M is now 10-4 head-to-head against Tennessee.
The Aggies return to action on Monday, as they host Prairie View A&M and Ohio State in a double header at George P Mitchell Tennis Center. First serve against Prairie View A&M begins at 11 A.M.