State will now return to SEC play this weekend, meeting No. 13 Vanderbilt on Friday and No. 38 Kentucky on Sunday, both on the road. Updates will be available through twitter @mstateWT and hailstate.com.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The top-ranked Virginia men's tennis team improved to 9-0 this season with a 6-1 victory over No. 11 Texas A&M Friday night at the Mitchell Tennis Center. It was the Cavaliers' sixth win this season over teams current ranked in the top 20 as they won their second match of their four-match roadtrip. The Aggies, who suffered their first home loss of the season, fell to 12-6 overall.
Virginia took an early 1-0 lead in the match by winning the doubles point. At No. 2, Alex Domijan (Wesley Chapel, Fla.) and Mitchell Frank, ranked No. 46 nationally, posted their biggest win as a duo, cruising to an 8-3 win over 13th-ranked Harrison Adams and Shane Vinsant. In a battle of two top-15 teams at No. 1, second-ranked Jarmere Jenkins (College Park, Ga.) and Mac Styslinger (Birmingham, Ala.) edged No. 15 Junior Ore and Jackson Withrow 9-7 to give the Cavaliers the opening point.
In singles, the Cavaliers gained control of the match by winning four of the six first sets. In the four matches that Virginia won the opening set, they closed out straight set wins to secure the victory. Justin Shane (Falls Church, Va.) was first off the courts, posting a 6-3, 6-1 win over Niall Angus at No. 6. His younger brother, Ryan, followed with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Adams at the No. 3 position. Seconds later the Cavalier win was clinched as Jenkins finished a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 1 singles over Ore. Frank's 6-2, 6-1 victory over Vinsant at No. 4 singles extended the advantage to 5-0.
The Aggies got on the scoreboard at No. 2 singles where Jeremy Efferding upset Domijan, the nation's top-ranked player, 6-3, 7-6(4). It snapped Domijan's eight-match win streak and was just his second loss of the season. In the final match on the courts, Styslinger rallied from dropping the first set for a 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4 win over Jordan Szabo at the No. 5 spot to make the final score 6-1.
Texas A&M Women Down Virginia
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The third-ranked Texas A&M women's tennis team extended its win streak to nine matches and improved to 10-1 with a 5-2 victory over No. 47 Virginia in front of 396 tonight at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
“I consider this to be a very, very good win for us,” A&M second-year head coach Howard Joffe said. “Virginia is a very fine team who at this moment is not ranked very high, but they are very dangerous. After they won the doubles point, they were certainly very charged up, but our kids truly showed tremendous strength and power to come back and to come back so quickly.”
The Cavaliers (3-6) took the early lead, winning two of three doubles matches to take a 1-0 advantage. Stephanie Nauta and Erin Vierra were first off with an 8-2 victory over A&M’s Cristina Sanchez-Quintanar and Nazari Urbina at No. 2.
A&M’s ninth-ranked duo of Stefania Hristov and Cristina Stancu won its first five games en route to an 8-2 victory over Maria Fuccillo and Hana Tomljanovic at the top of the lineup, and the point came down to the No. 3 court, where Virginia’s Julia Elbaba and Li Xi pulled away from a 3-3 tie against Aggie twins Ines and Paula Deheza to win, 8-3.
“Obviously the doubles point probably goes down as one of our weaker performances,” Joffe said. “The doubles point is played first, so it never feels good (to lose the point). You have to give Virginia a lot of credit. They played excellently in the doubles and in the match.”
The Aggies quickly turned the match around in singles, winning the first set on five of six courts. Hristov, a freshman from Romania, then cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win against No. 6 Caryssa Peretz, to even the score at 1-1.
Sun put A&M up, 2-1, pulling away for a 6-4 first set win against Vierra at No. 5 and then racing to a 6-0 second-set win to close out the match.
Ines Deheza also made quick work of her opponent, defeating Xi, 6-1, 6-4, at the No. 4 line to give the Aggies a 3-1 lead, and Stancu, ranked No. 62, would clinch the A&M victory at No. 2 singles, defeating 71st-ranked Nauta, 7-5, 6-4.
The Cavaliers notched their only singles point at the No. 3 line, were Tomljanovic downed 43rd-ranked Urbina, 7-5, 7-6 (2). In a battle of top-15 opponents, sixth-ranked Sanchez-Quintanar pulled off a 6-4, 6-7 (5), 1-0 (2) victory over 13th-ranked Elbaba to close out the match.
“Our girls showed what mettle they have, because in a very short time after the singles had started, we had probably gained control of the match in the larger context, winning five of six first sets,” Joffe said. “We sunk our teeth into the match pretty good. I consider this to be a very, very good win for us.”
A&M returns to SEC play this weekend, taking its 4-0 league mark on the road to face LSU in Baton Rouge on Friday at 3:30 p.m. and Arkansas, Sunday at 1 p.m. in Fayetteville.
Visit AggieAthletics.com for more information on Texas A&M women’s tennis. Aggie fans also can keep up to date with the A&M women’s tennis team on Twitter by following @AggieWTEN or on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Aggie-Womens-Tennis/143874782434654