The Texas A&M men’s tennis competed in the 2015 Conference Challenge this past weekend at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center. Playing against players from Illinois, Texas Tech and Harvard, the Aggies won 15 games on Friday, 11 on Saturday and then wrapped up the weekend with nine more victories on Sunday.

Rain turned out to be a bit of a factor on Friday, but both rounds of doubles were finished without issue. Senior Shane Vinsant and sophomore AJ Catanzariti defeated Harvard for the first win of the tournament, but all of the Aggie doubles teams did well. Two other doubles pairs went 2-0 on Friday.

Sophomore Arthur Rinderknech defeated a player from Texas Tech to give the Aggies two ranked single victories on the day, joining Vinsant, who beat Illinois earlier on.

Juniors Frankie Colunga and James Martell along with freshman Kevin Lam all went 2-0 on Friday.

Rinderknech won both of his singles matches on Saturday, defeating two Illinois players in consecutive matches, as did freshman Sam Giammalva, who defeated Harvard and Illinois.

Seven other Aggies registered at least one victory on Saturday, taking the total number of wins to 26 going into the final day of the four-team event.

The duo of Vinsant and Rinderknech won the biggest match of the tournament for the Aggies on Sunday. Facing off against a Texas Tech doubles team that was a 2015 NCAA Doubles finalist and currently ranked third in the nation, the veteran pair collected Texas A&M’s best result to this point in the season.

Junior Max Lunkin beat his Harvard opponent to finish the weekend 3-1 in singles matches, while Martell, a lefty who won the Midland Invitational last weekend, went 3-1.

In all, the Aggies won 35 matches.
The Aggies resume play next Saturday, October 3, at the ITA All-American in Tulsa, Oklahoma. All pre-qualifying matches will be played Saturday and Sunday, with the qualifying matches to follow Monday-Wednesday.