Jan. 26, 2019
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The No. 9 Texas A&M men's tennis team topped Western Michigan and UTRGV at the George P Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station, Texas on Saturday. A rain filled Saturday caused multiple delays, but the Aggies were able to advance to the ITA Kick-Off Weekend finals against No. 16 Virginia on Sunday after the Cavaliers dispatched of Cal earlier in the day.
The Maroon & White will take on the Cavaliers at 2 p.m. for a place in the ITA Division I National Men's Team Indoor Championship Presented By Oracle in Chicago, Ill. hosted by the University of Illinois on Feb. 15-18 at the Midtown Athletic Club. The losers from Saturday's matches, Western Michigan and Cal, will face off in a consolation match at 11 a.m. Sunday morning.
A&M opened the day with a quick 4-0 win over UTRGV, the match was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. but weather caused a nearly three hour delay. Despite the rain, the duos of Barnaby Smith and Kevin Lam along with Pranav Kumar and Alex Vedri picked up 6-1 doubles results to clinch the match's first point. Kumar followed with a 6-2, 6-0 win then Noah Schachter earned a 6-1, 6-3 triumph. Freshman Austin Abbrat earned his first clinch victory of the day, besting Georgije Babic on court four, 6-2, 6-3.
Following the conclusion of the Virginia 4-2 victory over Cal the Aggies hit the courts again. Facing off against the Broncos, Carlos Aguilar and Abbrat claimed a 6-0 doubles win on the top court. Following that result the rain returned and a delay of just over an hour ensued, after the resumption of play Valentin Vacherot and Jack Pulliam clinched the doubles point with a 7-5 win on court three.
The two teams split first sets across the six singles matches, but the Aggies piled up the momentum as No. 50 Smith defeated Jack Randall 6-4, 6-2 on court three. WMU inched back into the match with a 6-3, 6-4 win by Peter Kuszynski on court four over Schachter. No. 89 Aguilar topped Lenhard Haupt 6-2, 7-5 on court two to push the home team's advantage to 3-1. Abbrat collected his second clinch win of the day as he defeated Kennosuke Nouchi 7-6(4), 6-4 on court five.