At the end of day one of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Regional in College Station, the six scoreboards that line up in the courts at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center, lit up in favor of 12-seed Texas A&M as they defeated Buffalo 4-0.
A&M took the early 1-0 lead after the completion of doubles play. Juniors AJ Catanzariti and Arthur Rinderknech were the first Aggies to claim victory over Buffalo’s Filip Grbic and Hao Sheng Koay, 6-3. After the duo of Jordi Arconada and Hady Habib fell to Villhelm Fridell and Petr Vodak, 6-3, Aleksandre Bakshi and Max Lunkin gave A&M the lead heading into singles play.
Although the Aggies shutout the Bulls, the competition was a lot closer than what the scoreboard indicated. Following the match, Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton said despite being listed as the fourth seed in the regional, Buffalo was a strong team. 
“This was the first time in a while that I think we’ve had a four seed that came in here like this and I knew that they were going to give us a hard time,” Denton said. “I knew about the effort and attitude from Buffalo. They were going work hard and play gritty. I knew we were going to have a fight on our hands.”
Denton also said that the tough play shown by Buffalo in today’s matches would prepare the team in the upcoming matches that lay ahead in the post-season. Especially with the second round of the tournament which begins tomorrow against Oregon, who defeated Memphis 4-2 prior to the Aggies’ outing.
“I’m hopeful that this will actually works in our favor,” Denton said. “We had to dig down, and dig deep today to get that win. Doubles was certainly a question. They tested us in all the matches. There were no easy matches.”
In the singles portion of the match, Catanzariti gave A&M the 2-0 advantage defeating Grbic, 6-3, 7-5. The next two points came quickly as Bakshi defeated Vodak 6-4, 7-5 and sixth-ranked No. 6 Rinderknech beat Koay 6-3, 6-4. 
Denton said he was pleased with the way his team opened the NCAA tournament. Denton hopes his team continues to get better through weekend allowing them to make a deep tournament run.
“Our guys had to work. There’s no doubt about it. They came to play and you have to give them a lot of credit. Our guys stepped up Our guys our going to have to elevate their play if they want to advance,” Denton said.
The Aggies will be back in action Saturday as they host Oregon in the second round of the NCAA men’s tennis tournament at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.