CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The Vanderbilt men’s tennis team concluded its non-conference schedule Friday afternoon against the squad’s toughest challenge yet, the No. 1 UNC Tar Heels.
With the opposition stacked full of Oracle/ITA top-80 singles players and two top-30 doubles teams, the Commodores gained invaluable experience in Friday afternoon’s 7-0 defeat. After the defeat, the Commodores now own an 8-6 record.
“We just played a really good team that just won National Indoors and are the No. 1 team in the country,” said head coach Ian Duvenhage. “We found out what we basically already knew from the matches that we played against Columbia and Northwestern and some of these schools in the top-20, and that’s that were right there. So we just have to keep our chins up and keep working hard.”
While the 54th-ranked squad was swept, in actuality the match was closer than the final score shows.
“It’s about a few keys points here and there, and at this level it’s so close. If you make a couple of key mistakes you end up paying for it, and we ended up seeing that all the way down the line. ”
“You know it happened to Danny (Valent) who lost a couple of key points, Cam (Klinger), Baker (Newman) serving for the match. You know the good news is that we’re very very close. We have to solve these issues and execute better in these key situations to win matches like this.”
Throughout the competition there were sparks where Student-athletes were playing some of their best tennis this season, winning half of the first sets and forcing five of six third sets.
Several of these bright spots include Rhys Johnson and Cameron Klinger 5-4 lead in doubles over No. 4 Clark/Kelly as the point was clinched by the Tar Heels.
As well as the three first set victories in singles, which includes Klinger’s 7-6(5) tiebreak win over No. 10 Ronnie Schneider for the first set advantage, and Johnson’s efficient 6-3 first set victory over No. 23 Brett Clark.
Also, Baker Newman nearly earned his highest ranked win of his career against No. 41 Boyden but fell in the third set 7-5. Freshman Alex Ross won three straight games to split at what could’ve been a very crucial moment in the match.
At this point, with the third set still early on several courts, the match was still up for grabs, but the Commodores were out worked in their final sets.
“We stress to our team all the time that we have to be growth oriented. There’s a moment in time when all great teams sort of arise and the moment before that weren’t a “great” team, and by virtue of coming in clutch and winning a huge match they become a great team. We know we’re right on the verge. We obviously played a very hard non-conference schedule and that will help us next weekend when we start playing in conference. But we still have a bunch of things that we need to improve and get better at. I told the team that it’s not about how you start the season, but how you finish it.”
Vanderbilt returns home next week to kick off SEC play, facing the South Carolina Gamecocks Thursday, March 10th at 5:00 pm CT, and welcoming the Georgia Bulldogs on March 13th. Following the UGA match, the Dores will host Ball State in their fourth doubleheader.
