The Texas A&M men’s tennis team won 18 singles matches and eight doubles matches this past weekend at the ITA Texas Regionals tournament, including a singles championship. The tournament was hosted by Rice, but was then moved to a different location in Houston due to weather conditions.
The men’s team went 4-1 in first round play, including a victory in its only first round doubles match, a 8-3 victory featuring A&M sophomore Jordi Arconada and junior James Martell, against Incarnate Word.
They advanced to round two while duos AJ Catanzariti/Max Lunkin, Kevin Lam/Oscar Janglin, Frankie Colunga/Sam Giammalva and Shane Vinsant/Arthur Rinderknech all enjoyed a bye. In singles, Martell along with fellow junior Colunga and freshman Lam were victorious to advance to round of 64 play. They joined teammates Arconada, Catanzariti, Vinsant, Janglin, Lunkin and Rinderknech, who all received a first round bye.
A&M was then able to send seven players past round two in singles play, highlighted by a convincing win from Oscar Janglin, a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Trey Crysel out of Lamar. In doubles, the Aggies saw four of their five teams advance to round of 16 play, which included wins from Catanzariti/Lunkin, Lam/Janglin, Colunga/Giammalva and Vinsant/Rinderknech.
As singles round of 32 play took place A&M came away with three wins, including two from underclassmen. Sophomore AJ Catanzariti had a thrilling 5-7, 7-6 (11), 6-1 victory over Jamie Malik of Rice. Sophomore Arthur Rinderknech won 6-1, 6-2 over Yates Johnson of SMU and senior Shane Vinsant won 6-2, 6-2 over Connor Curry of Texas Tech. Doubles round of 16 play included an 8-7 (4) win from Vinsant/Rinderkncech against TCU, who advanced to the doubles quarterfinals.
In the fourth round of singles play, the Aggies kept winning, getting victories from two of their three remaining players, Vinsant and Rinderknech. Vinsant moved on to quarterfinal play and came up short against Alex Sendegeya of Texas Tech. However, his teammate, Rinderknech, moved to the round of eight and won his quarterfinal match over Adam Gustafsson of Rice by a score of 6-4, 6-3. In doubles quarterfinal play, Vinsant/Rinderknech stayed alive with an 8-7 (5) victory over Lamar.
Come semifinal play, the Aggies would send one representative for singles and doubles, and both earned a bid for the finals. Rinderknech came away with a 6-3, 6-4 semifinal victory and won the final match 6-0, 6-2 over Hunter Johnson of SMU. Vinsant/Rinderknech came out victorious with a 6-0, 6-1 doubles win over Sendegeya/Mylnikov of Texas Tech to advance to the finals against Dojas/Soares of the the Red Raiders, where they came up short by a score of 6-4, 6-1.
The A&M men’s team will now look ahead to the Birmingham Futures Qualifier beginning on Halloween as they continue to improve and prepare for regular season play in spring 2016.
