The No. 10 Aggie men’s tennis team traveled to the Boone Tennis Center and took on No. 19 Kentucky Friday afternoon. The Aggies defeated South Carolina and UT-Arlington earlier this week and now looked to continue their winning ways against the Wildcats.
A&M claimed its sixth straight doubles point with this match. Shane Vinsant and Harrison Adams won 6-4 followed by a win from Max Lunkin and Arthur Rinderknech by the same score.
In singles, the Aggies later got even further ahead of Kentucky with a total score of 2-0. The Wildcats then responded by tying it up 2-2 with two straight wins. After Kentucky made their push, the momentum started to run out for A&M as the match continued. Despite trailing A&M, Kentucky then played well and outscored the Aggies for the remainder of the match. The final fell in favor of the Wildcats 4-3.
The Aggies men fell to 6-4 in the SEC. They will now head south and compete against the Tennessee Volunteers in another SEC showdown.
The George P. Mitchell Tennis Center also had its taste of Tennessee as the Lady Vols came into town on Friday.
The No. 18 Aggies were able to earn the first point of the match. Initially, both teams had a court win. This was before the pressure was moved to the group of Rutuja Bhosale and Anna Mamalat. That was not a barrier as the Aggie upperclassmen won it 7-5 after a tiebreaker. A&M controlled the match first 1-0 after doubles.
Moments later, A&M had no problem defeating Tennessee in singles. It was senior Ines Deheza who clinched the win for the Aggies with her victory over Tennessee’s Brittany Lindl. The rest of the matches were played out and the 18th ranked Aggies swept Tennessee across the board 7-0.
Head coach Mark Weaver had several thoughts over the match.
“The doubles [point] was key. Those doubles points are so tricky,” Weaver said. “At the end of the day when you look at the singles scores, we won them pretty routinely. But if you don’t get the doubles point, maybe Tennessee has a little more hope.”
The women’s tennis team snapped back out of .500, improving to 6-5 in the SEC. They will host Georgia at the Mitchell Tennis Center Sunday at noon.
