After a long week of ice and snow across Texas, Texas A&M fans turned toward Nashville, Tenn., where the No. 10 Texas A&M men’s tennis team took on the Vanderbilt Commodores in its first SEC matchup of the year.
The Aggies were riding a two-match win streak from their trip to Florida. Victories over FGCU and No. 19 UCF gave the team momentum headed into SEC play. They carried that momentum as they bested Vanderbilt 6-1.
Starting the day off with doubles play, A&M found wins on both courts 2 and 1 to secure the first point of the match. On court 2, the Aggies’ Guido Marson and Bjorn Thomson had an impressive 6-0 win. Noah Schachter and Hady Habib finished off doubles play with a 6-2 win while Pierce Rollins and Valentin Vacherot’s match went unfinished as the Aggies started with a 1-0 lead.
“I was very happy with our energy in the doubles today,” A&M coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “We really jumped on them early on a couple of courts”
To finish out the day, the Aggies were just as strong in singles play. They were 5-1 as a unit. All three ranked singles players for A&M won their singles matches and the lone loss was pushed to three sets.
Raphael Perot, the freshman from France, earned the first singles point of the day, winning 6-3, 6-0. Next, No. 13 Habib took his victory on court 2, followed by No. 4 Valentin Vacherot on court 1. Vacherot faced Vanderbilt’s sole ranked singles player, No.117 George Harwell, taking the victory as the Aggies led 4-0.
Vanderbilt earned its first and only point as Vandy’s Jeremie Casabon beat A&M’s Thomson with a 3rd set super-tiebreaker. A&M’s No. 116 Schachter, after losing his first set, had an outstanding second set en route to a comeback victory. Schachter won in three sets with a score of 5-7, 6-0, 7-5. Lastly, on court 6 Pierce Rollins earned the final point of the day, giving the Aggies a 6-1 victory.
The Aggies, on a three-match win streak, face a test against the No. 16 Kentucky Wildcats. They face off in Bryan-College Station on Feb. 23 at 3 p.m.