The No. 11 Texas A&M men’s tennis team was able to sweep No. 21 Pepperdine, 4-0, in the first round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich., at the Michigan Varsity Tennis Center. The victory marked A&M’s second consecutive win to start the season.
“That was a hard fought win today and I thought we started really well in the doubles and finished strong,” head coach Steve Denton told 12thman.com. “Pepperdine is a dangerous team, but our guys were much improved in our second indoor match of the year . That score did not indicate just how close this match really was. They are a team to be reckoned with this season when they get a few matches under their belt. For us, we played solid today and we take a step up tomorrow against a very talented Baylor team. We will need our ‘A’ game if we want to advance to Illinois. I know our guys are excited for this opportunity.”
A&M started off the match in doubles with a 6-1 win from A&M’s Hady Habib and Noah Schachter over Pietro Fellin and Robert Shelton from Pepperdine.
The Aggies were able to pick up the doubles point after a 7-6 tiebreaker win from Valentin Vacherot and Pierce Rollins against Pepperdine’s Corrado Summaria and Guy Den Ouden.
The two teams then moved on to singles, where Habib was able to defeat Adrian Oetzbach 6-3, 6-2.
The next point came from Schachter, who beat Summaria 6-1, 6-4, to put the Aggies up 3-0.
A&M clinched the match win after Juan Carlos Aguilar defeated Ouden 6-2,7-5.
The next for the Aggies is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday against No. 15 Baylor in the next round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend. The winner gets a spot in the ITA Indoor Team Championships next month in Urbana-Champaign, Ill.