Jan. 27, 2017
Chapel Hill, N.C. — The Vanderbilt men’s tennis team stormed out to take a 4-1 victory against Penn State in the squad’s first match of the ITA Kickoff Weekend.
With the victory, the Commodores improve to 6-1 and look to face No. 7 North Carolina. Saturday’s championship match is slated for 5:30 p.m. CT.
“We did a really good job starting out of the gate fast,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “We got up early in singles and we were able to clinch the victory. Tomorrow will be a great opportunity for us. UNC is the defending National Indoor champ and we get to play them at their place. So tomorrow is going to be fun.”
In doubles against Penn State, the `Dores pulled off the point advantage, but not without a fight as courts two and three won by a score of 6-4. Following the victory over David Kohan and Christian Lutschaunig, Baker Newman and Panu Virtanen now own a 4-1 record.
Alongside Billy Rowe at No. 3 doubles, Vanderbilt debuted newcomer Lachlan McPhee, a sophomore who played for Georgia-Gwinnett College last season. The pair picked up their first win, 6-4, over Christos Antonopoulos and Matt Galush.
“This was one of our most compete doubles points we’ve played so far this year. It was good to see all three teams doing a good job from the start. I think we were up a break on all courts within the first 10 minutes. The matches got a little tight in the end with Penn State hanging in there, but it was good to get the clinch.”
In singles action, sophomore Cameron Klinger was first off the court, earning his second career win at No. 1 singles with a 6-0, 6-4 win over PSU’s Constant De La Bassetiere.
Rowe gave VU the 3-0 advantage, defeating sophomore Texas A&M transfer Harry Gordon, 6-3, 6-2. The final blow came on court two by No. 97 Daniel Valent as the junior earned a 6-2, 6-4 victory for his 15th win of the season. Just prior to the clinch, Penn State earned its one point of the outing on court as Virtanen fell to Ben Lieb, 6-4, 6-4.
At the clinch, VU’s Newman led 6-2, 5-4 on court three, while McPhee took a dominant first set tiebreaker, 7-6(1) and was tied in the second set at 2-all.
“It was nice to have Lachlan in. Jamie (Hunt) was very very happy with his performance. He was down a break early on, but broke back and played almost a flawless tiebreaker. We look forward to seeing all of our guys compete tomorrow.”
