The No. 19 Texas A&M men’s tennis team took out the UCLA Bruins by a score of 4-3 on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
The Aggies swept the Bruins in doubles play en route to an easy point heading into singles play.
The first victorious team from A&M included the duo of Italian junior Giulio Perego and Turkish sophomore Togan Tokac. The team of European superpowers claimed a 6-1 victory over UCLA’s team of redshirt junior Timothy Li and junior Giacomo Revelli.
The Aggie duo of Perego and Tokac impressed in preseason tournaments and will look to rally the chemistry built together into success further down the line this season.
The Maroon and White secured the doubles point when the team of juniors JC Roddick and Luke Casper defeated the Bruins’ team of redshirt senior Govind Nanda and junior Alexander Hoogmartens.
A&M’s two highest-ranked individual players snagged the doubles point together and gave the Aggies a 1-0 lead heading into singles play.
The Bruins got the first point in singles play when Revelli defeated Tokac 6-2, 6-3, equalling the score for the Texans and Californians.
A&M got the lead back, winning back-to-back singles matches with Perego defeating sophomore Aadarsh Tripathi, 6-4, 6-4. The Aggies took a 3-1 lead when No. 109 Roddick beat Hoogmartens, 7-6, 6-1
The Aggies secured the win as highly coveted freshman Tiago Pires defeated fellow freshman Spencer Johnson, 6-4, 6-3.
With a 4-1 lead, the Aggies agreed to play out the remaining two matches. The Bruins grabbed the 2 remaining points as Nanda prevailed by scores of 7-5, 6-3 over A&M senior Raphael Perot. Then, UCLA’s No. 121 sophomore Gianluca Ballotta topped A&M’s No. 93 Casper.
A&M won 4-3 and left California 2-0 to start the season. Next, it will head to Atlanta to face the Georgia Southern Eagles at the Byers Tennis Complex on Jan. 25, with first serve set for 2 p.m.
