The No. 13 Texas A&M men’s tennis team swept past Arizona State with a score of 5-0 Sunday at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center. The Aggies improved to 7-3 for the season whereas Arizona State falls to 3-5. The second match of the doubleheader could not be played due to inclement weather and has been rescheduled for April 5.
The maroon and white brought the confidence from the dominating win against Rice to this game and were pretty much in control of the tie from start to finish.
“We are really happy with the team coming back from a good showing on Friday to stay focused and defeat a very talented Arizona State team,” A&M coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “We continued to take some strides forward and we are excited to start SEC play on Friday against Kentucky.”
The Aggies secured the doubles points with two straight victories. The duo of Valentin Vacherot & Noah Schachter cruised past Tom LeBlanc and William Kirkman 6-1 on court two to improve their record to 7-1 this spring. The Aggie pair of Carlos Aguilar and Stefan Storch managed to get a decisive break in the crucial 10th game of their match against No. 12 Tim Ruehl and Andrea Bolla to clinch the doubles point for the Maroon & White.
In singles action, the Aggies secured four straight set victories to complete a dominating display. They won the first set in all the singles matches. Stefan Storch started from where he left off in the doubles match and beat George Stoupe 6-1, 6-4 to make it 2-0 for A&M.
The Aggies then won three other singles encounters in quick succession to make it 5-0. Schachter made it 3-0 after defeating No. 121 Makey Rakotomalala 6-4,6-2 on court four. The highest ranked Aggie player, No. 3 Vacherot then sealed the tie for A & M by crushing Tim Ruehl 6-2, 6-1 on court two. No. 34 Hady Habib saw off some inspired tennis from Andrea Bolla in the second set, triumphing 6-1, 7-5 to complete the meet for A&M.
The Aggies will next host Kentucky on Friday in their SEC opener at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.