Apr 12, 2019
COLLEGE STATION – The No. 8 Texas A&M men's tennis team fell, 6-1, to No. 7 Mississippi State Friday evening at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center. The Bulldogs (18-3, 10-1 SEC) were the 11th top-25 opponent for the Aggies (19-6, 9-2 SEC) this season, A&M has recorded a 6-5 record against ranked opponents.
"The score was 6-1, but I know we left some things out there that we had chances with and we didn't execute at the right times and didn't play big points as well as we could," Texas A&M head coach Steve Denton said. "They are one of the best doubles teams in the country, so that wasn't surprising. Maybe some of those scores could have been a little bit closer. We are not making enough first serves and getting behind because of it. They played like an experienced team tonight, they didn't let us put points on the board. It seemed like they were winning the majority of the 3-all points on almost every court."
The Aggies trailed 1-0 after the Bulldogs claimed the doubles point with wins on courts one and three. The Mississippi State duo of Trevor Foshey and Gregor Ramskogler bested A&M's Austin Abbrat and Hady Habib, 6-2, on court three followed by No. 3 Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic over No. 10 Carlos Aguilar and Barnaby Smith, 6-1, on court one to secure the point.
The Bulldogs raced out to a 3-0 lead after claiming four first sets in singles action, including 6-3, 6-3 wins on court one and six. MSU's No. 2 Borges topped A&M's Aguilar, ranked No. 46, on court one and MSU's Florian Broska bested A&M's Guido Marson on court six.
After the visitors took the 3-0 advantage, play settled down and the team result was still in the balance. A&M's Vacherot, ranked No. 61, topped Rakic 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 on court three to post A&M's only point of the night. With the win, Vacherot improved to 11-0 in the SEC this spring and 15-4 overall in dual matches.
The remaining three matches could have gone either way, but all fell in the Bulldogs favor. Foshey topped Schachter in three sets on court five, No. 70 Giovanni Oradini tripped Habib on court two and Niclas Braun eeked by Barnaby Smith on court four to make the final score 6-1 for MSU.
A&M has secured a top-four seed in the SEC Tournament for the sixth straight year and the Aggies have beaten or equaled their pre-season prediction by the league coaches for the seventh straight season.