NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Commodore upset bid of 13th-ranked Kentucky fell just short Saturday afternoon at the Currey Tennis Center, as Vanderbilt fell 4-3 in the regular season finale.
After sweeping the doubles matches, the Vanderbilt men’s tennis team looked to carry momentum over into singles play, but was unable to hold off a late surge by the Wildcats.
“I really liked our doubles matches,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “I really liked the way we competed down the line. With the exception of No. 1 singles, I felt we had a chance everywhere. I thought we made some key errors at key times.”
“When you play a team like this, it’s going to come down to two, three, four points. I thought that really the thing that let us down was return of serves. We didn’t make return of serves at key points and when you don’t make return of serves, you don’t even get a chance to compete for the point.”
The Commodores got off to a quick start in doubles, thanks to an 8-4 victory by Alex Zotov and Blake Bazarnik on court three. On court one, Adam Baker and Charlie Jones held off 32nd-ranked Eric Quigley and Brad Cox to pick up a 9-7 victory and clinch the doubles point. Vanderbilt completed the sweep when Ryan Lipman and Bryant Salcedo defeated Alex Musialek and Anthony Rossi, 8-6, on court two.
Kentucky’s Quigley wasted no time erasing Vanderbilt’s lead, as he posted a 6-3, 6-2 win over Lipman on court one. Zotov defeated Tom Jomby on court six to give the lead back to the Commodores.
In the No. 3 match, Jones defeated Brad Cox, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, to extend Vanderbilt’s lead to 3-1, with the three remaining matches playing in third sets.
On court four, Bazarnik came out with a 6-4 victory in the first set, but was held scoreless in the second set. He was unable to hold off 88th-ranked Alberto Gonzalez in the third set, falling 7-5, as Kentucky cut into Vanderbilt’s lead yet again.
Kentucky tied the match after 56th-ranked Alex Musialek picked up a 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 win over Baker on court two. Baker held off several match points by Musialek in the second set to force a third-set tiebreaker, but was unable to top him in the third.
Just as Baker’s set concluded, Salcedo and Anthony Rossi went to a tiebreaker in the third set on court five. Salcedo lost his first set, 0-6, but was able to regain momentum for a 6-4 win in the second. In the tiebreaker of the third, Salcedo trailed by just one point, but committed two costly errors for Rossi to take the win.
“I do feel like we’re getting better and we are playing better tennis now that we did earlier in the year,” said Duvenhage. “We’re definitely making progress, so we just have to keep that process going. We got so close here, so if we can get a little better we can have terrific results at the SEC’s and then we have the NCAA Tournament. We have to continue to work and get better.”
The Commodores will face Ole Miss in the 8/9 match of the first round of the SEC Tournament, which begins on Thursday. Vanderbilt will play at 5 p.m. CT, and the winner of the first round match will advance to face No. 1 seed Tennessee.
