Ideally, it isn’t a great idea for Texas A&M men’s tennis to enter the NCAA Tournament on a three-game losing streak. Unfortunately for A&M, its loss to Arkansas in the first round of the SEC Tournament put the team in this very predicament. Time will tell whether this is the beginning of the end to A&M’s season or an opportunity to move on and start anew in the postseason.
Much like A&M’s loss to Florida earlier in the week, the vital doubles point came down to the duo of Raphael Perot and Giulio Perego’s matchup against freshman Jacob Sweeney and junior Hunter Harrison. The matchup, while closely contested, didn’t go in A&M’s favor as the Arkansas pairing took the 6-4 victory to clinch the doubles point.
Singles play didn’t fare much better for the Aggies. The only positive in the entire match was freshman Luke Casper, who continued his strong debut season with the Aggies with his victory in straight sets over sophomore Melvin Manuel.
Arkansas clinched the 4-1 match victory after A&M’s Perego, sophomore Stefan Storch and junior Guido Marson each lost in straight sets.
A&M coach Steve Denton said that while it is unfortunate for A&M’s season to end this way, at least the team now has a couple of weeks to get ready for the NCAA Tournament.
“Just like in the first meeting, Arkansas won a contested doubles point, and they appeared to be more physical than we were today, which was a major difference in the match,” Denton said. “This is not how we wanted to end the regular season, but we now have two weeks to get ready to make an NCAA run.”
A&M will find out its NCAA Tournament destination on Monday, May 2 at 5 p.m on NCAA.com. The tournament is set to start later that week on Friday, May 6.