WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Leading top-ranked Wake Forest, 3-1, the Vanderbilt men’s tennis team was unable to close out Saturday’s ITA Kick-Off Regional Championship as the Demon Deacons rebounded to punch their ticket to National Team Indoors, 4-3.
“You can’t have a match any closer than that,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “They’re a really great team and we were just one-point shy from beating the No. 1 team in the country. We can make a lot of improvements and still get better. I told the team after the match to hold their heads up high. I’m proud of how they handled themselves out there. We just have to stick with it.”
Switching doubles duos proved advantageous for the Commodores, as Vanderbilt began the Regional Championship by nabbing a dominant doubles point.
Cameron Klinger and Billy Rowe earned the first win on the day, handing Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim a 6-4 loss on court one. Making their doubles debut, Lachlan McPhee and Panu Virtanen clinched the 1-0 lead for VU, downing Borna Gojo and Ian Dempster, 6-3.
“I thought we came out and played a really good doubles point,” Duvenhage continued, “and that’s a huge positive. Only a week ago we couldn’t win the doubles point to save our lives, and we won both doubles points this weekend. We’ve made a lot of progress in a week.”
Wake Forest opened up singles play earning the first win to level the team score, 1-all, as No. 88 Bar Botzer defeated freshman Maxwell Freeman on court five, 6-3, 6-2.
Facing the fourth-ranked player in the nation, Petros Chrysochos, Klinger stormed out to take the first set, 6-2. The junior from San Jose, Calif., put the match away in straight sets and picked up his highest ranked career win to remain undefeated (5-0) with a 6-2, 6-4 victory. Freshman George Harwell followed Klinger’s straight-set victory with a win of his own. The Nashville native downed redshirt-sophomore Alan Gadjiev on court six to give VU a 3-1 lead.
“Cam (Klinger) was just all business today. The guy he played is a really good player, and when Cam knows that his opponent is someone worthy of high respect he really buckles down. That’s something we’re looking for him to do every single match, regardless of who his opponent is.”
Up 3-1, the Dores suffered close losses on courts three then one, as seniors Baker Newman and No. 50 Daniel Valent had opportunities on their respective courts. Newman fell to No. 15 Mansori, 6-1, 7-6 on three, while Valent lost to Gojo in two tiebreakers.
With the match knotted at 3-all, all 450 sets of eyes in the Wake Forest Tennis Complex shifted to court four where the match decider took place between Rowe and Rrezart Cungu. Rowe played superb tennis to give himself a 6-1 first set advantage, and while he had opportunities to close out the third set for the victory, his opponent drove the match to a deciding tiebreaker.
Wake Forest held onto a quick lead in the third set tiebreaker to seal the victory and spot at ITA National Team Indoors, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6(4).
“We handled the environment absolutely flawlessly,” recalled Duvenhage, “at no point did I feel anybody getting rattled by the crowd or the yelling. I thought Billy got a little unlucky there a few times. He’s the kind of guy that can come up with a really nice and big serve when you need him to, and I told him after the match that I was really proud of him. If we do things like this for the rest of the year, we’ll be earning lots of wins.”
