COLLEGE STATION, Texas — In a match that lasted over three hours, No. 22 Vanderbilt men’s tennis was able to secure four singles victories after falling behind early to rally for a 4-2 win over No. 13 seed Alabama Wednesday in the first round of the SEC Tournament at the Mitchell Tennis Center.
It marked the second time the Commodores (17-11) have defeated the Crimson Tide (12-17) in a week after closing the regular season with a 4-0 victory in Nashville last Friday. Vandy also avenged a 4-3 Alabama win in the opening round of last season’s SEC Tournament.
“It’s part of like how we train going back to August and September, and the two years before that. You train so that you can be resilient,” head coach Scott Brown said. “Part of that resilience comes from how you go about your business and training. These guys earned that because we had a good start to the SEC season after the first three weeks, and then we had a lull where we took some losses on the chin. But the reason we’re able to win today and beat a good Alabama team twice in one week is because the guys through that tough period continued to work and continued to show up and say, ‘Where can we get better?’
“And this is postseason. It’s so little about tennis in the postseason. It’s more about how you compete, how you bounce back, how you take your opportunities and chances. The last thing we should do is make it about tennis, because if we do then we won’t be able to be resilient and compete the way we need to compete to win.”
The Tide used a pair of late breaks on the second and third courts to claim the doubles point. Brendan Loh and Carlos Gimenez Perez earned a break at 5-5 and then held to secure the match at No. 3 while down 4-2 on Court 2, Rohan Hazratwala and Matic Kriznik recovered to win five of the next six games to give Alabama a 1-0 lead in the match.
Vit Kalina doubled the Crimson Tide advantage with a straight-sets victory in a match featuring a pair of nationally-ranked individuals on the No. 2 court before the Commodore rally began. Vandy evened the match when Hwang Donghyun and Nathan Cox finished wins on Courts 6 and 4, respectively, within a minute of each other, taking its first lead in the match after Danil Panarin won six of the final seven points in a second-set tiebreaker to earn a sweep at the No. 3 position.
The Dores completed the comeback when Jack Satterfield clinched a straight-sets victory on Court 5 after winning the first set in a tiebreaker.
“Like every sport, the momentum is like a pendulum, it just swings,” said Brown. “In doubles, we got broke the first game and then we went up a break at No. 3 and we’re on serve on No. 2, and then we break back. We get some momentum, and then we get broken back at No. 3. We had a window where we had a chance to take it, and it didn’t go our way, and Alabama got the momentum.
“And then in singles, I think what helped us a lot was Donny, who hasn’t played a whole lot his freshman year. He’s a very good player, and he stepped up and took care of business, won very convincingly against a good player, and then Nate too. He and Nate got us on the board and got that momentum going, they did a good job pushing each other and that really gave us a boost. Once we evened it up, the match started turning. And I think Jack getting that first set breaker was huge. Danil pulled it out, and then Pablo extended his match gutting out the second set.
“You need to hang around, that’s how tennis is played as a team sport. We all kind of feed off each other, which is something that we try to talk to the guys a lot about. And I think that’s what helped us at the end.”
Vandy will now take on the fifth seed, host No. 10 Texas A&M, in the second round Thursday at 6 p.m. For more information, updates and exclusive match day content, follow the Vanderbilt men’s tennis team, @VandyMTennis, on Instagram and X.
Doubles
1. No. 11 Cox/Hoyoung Roh [Vanderbilt] vs. No. 10 Kalina/Andrii Zimnokh [Alabama] 6-6 unfinished
2. Hazratwala/Kriznik [Alabama] def. Pablo Martinez Gomez/Callum Markowitz [Vanderbilt] 7-5
3. Loh/Gimenez Perez [Alabama] def. Panarin/Satterfield [Vanderbilt] 6-4
Singles
1. No. 68 Martinez Gomez [Vanderbilt] vs. No. 88 Kriznik [Alabama] 4-6, 7-5, 2-1 unfinished
2. No. 92 Kalina [Alabama] def. No. 85 Hoyoung [Vanderbilt] 6-3, 6-3
3. Panarin [Vanderbilt] vs. Zimnokh [Alabama] 6-2, 7-6 (4)
4. Cox [Vanderbilt] def. Yoshka Sborowsky [Alabama] 6-3, 6-4
5. Satterfield [Vanderbilt] def. Gimenez Perez [Alabama] 7-6 (2), 6-3
6. Hwang [Vanderbilt] def. Loh [Alabama] 6-2, 6-3
Order of finish: Doubles (3,2); Singles (2,4,6,3,5)
