Nov. 2, 2017
The ITA National Fall Championships began on Wednesday in Palm Desert, Calif., and Vanderbilt’s doubles team of Billy Rowe and Lachlan McPhee earned a victory in the first round of play over Stetson’s Linus Bergevi and Colter DeCoste.
McPhee/Rowe dug themselves in a hole early by dropping the first set, 6-3, but the Commodore pair bounced back and swept the second set, 6-0, to force a superset tiebreak. The two teams split the first four points of the tiebreak to bring the score to a 2-2 tie before Vanderbilt won seven of the next nine points. Stetson attempted to rally, but was only able to win two more points before the Commodores won the set, 10-6, clinching the match.
McPhee and Rowe will now move on to play fifth-seeded Robert Loeb and Jan Zielinksi of Georgia tomorrow in the round of 16. Loeb and Zielinski defeated Old Dominion’s Aziz Kijametovic and Francois Musitelli by a score of 4-6, 7-5, 10-8.
In singles play, Daniel Valent suffered his first loss of the fall season in the round of 64 to fourth-seeded Skander Mansouri from Wake Forest. Valent gave the four-time All-American a fight in both sets, but ultimately fell by a 6-3, 6-4 margin.
