Nov. 2, 2017
The ITA National Fall Championships continued on Thursday and all three Commodores that made the trip out west to Palm Desert, Calif., were in action on day two of the tournament.
Billy Rowe and Lachlan McPhee raced out to a fast start in the doubles round of 16 against fifth-seeded Jan Zielinski and Robert Loeb (Georgia) with a 6-3 win in the first set, but the Vanderbilt duo was unable to hang on to lead from there. The Bulldogs won the second set, 6-3, to force a superset tiebreak and then won the deciding frame by a 10-5 margin. The loss brings Rowe and McPhee’s overall record to 8-3 in the fall season. They advanced to the round of 16 by defeating Stetson’s Linus Bergevi and Colter DeCoste in the first round.
Daniel Valent dropped his match in consolation singles play to UNC-Asheville’s Henry Patten; 7-5, 6-4. Also of note, Valent (11-2) was honored on Thursday as Vanderbilt’s Student-Athlete Academic Support student of the month for November. The senior from Zurich, Switzerland is majoring in biochemistry at Vanderbilt.
