NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The No. 16 Vanderbilt men’s tennis team got the season off on the right foot, sweeping both Marquette and Belmont in Sundays season-opening doubleheader at the Currey Tennis Center.
The Commodores started off the afternoon winning all three doubles matches. Second-ranked Ryan Lipman and Gonzales Austin won the first match over the Golden Eagles’ top doubles team, 6-4.
Suresh Eswaran and Kris Yee clinched the doubles point with a 6-4 win at the No. 3 position. After getting up 4-1 early in the match, Eswaran and Yee let Marquette back in, as the Golden Eagles won the next three games to make it 4-4, but the Vandy duo was able to bear down and win the next two games and take the match.
The bottom of the Commodores singles lineup was able to make quick work of the Golden Eagles, as Yee, at No. 5, Anton Kovrigin at No. 4, and Jeffrey Offerdahl at No. 6, picked up wins in straight sets.
With Yee and Kovrigin’s wins giving Vandy a 3-0 lead over Marquette, it was No. 57 Rhys Johnson at No. 3 singles who clinched the match for the ‘Dores, breaking Logon Collins’ serve, for the 6-2, 6-2 win.
Perhaps the most thrilling matches of the day came at No. 1 and No. 2 singles.
After winning the first set 6-3, ninth-ranked Austin dropped the second set and trailed 0-3 early in the third to Marquette’s top player, Vukasin Teofanovic. However, the junior from Miami was able to fight back and win six straight games to take the match 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
Lipman got his first taste of singles action in over three months playing out of the No. 2 position. The redshirt senior got all that he could ask for in MU’s Dan Mamalat. After dropping the first set 8-6 in the breaker, Lipman was able to even things up by winning the second breaker 7-2, before taking the third set ten point tie-break, 10-7.
The win was the first for the Nashville native this season.
The second match of the day against Belmont was much of the same for the Commodores.
Vandy quickly took the doubles point, as Kovrigin and Offerdahl won 6-1, and Eswaran and Yee, clinching, 6-2.
The bottom of the Vandy lineup once again made quick work of the opponent, with Offerdahl at No. 4 and Eswaran at No. 5, winning in straight sets.
Yee clinched the match for the ‘Dores at No. 2 singles, with a 6-1, 6-5 (7-4) win over Belmont’s Marko Lovrinovic.
Kovrigin won in three sets at the No. 3 position, while No. 57 Johnson made his debut at No. 1 singles for the Commodores, winning 6-4, 6-4.
Vanderbilt will host the ITA Kick-off next weekend, beginning Saturday, January 25. The Commodores will host Texas, Wake Forest and LSU, with a chance to go to February’s National Indoor Championships on the line.
Vandy, the top-seed, will face the fourth-seeded Longhorns, Saturday at 10 a.m. Second-seed Wake Forest will take on No. 3 LSU, starting at 2 p.m.
