RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men's tennis team dropped a heartbreaker of a match, 4-3, Thursday to the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (AMCC) Islanders in the South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, at the Orville Cox Tennis Center.
UTRGV (2-7, 0-0 Southland Conference) picked up the 1-0 lead in an energetic doubles session. The No. 1 duo of sophomore
Santiago Serrano and freshman
Loic Young Kriegel continued to shine as they rolled to a 6-1 win, controlling the match from start to finish. The No. 3 pair of sophomore
Ivo Isqueiro and freshman
Eduardo Menezes secured the doubles point with a 6-4 win shortly after the ones. They played fast and set the rowdy tone from the far court.
The singles matches were tight and tense across all courts. The Islanders (7-0, 0-0 SLC) won five of six first sets, but the Vaqueros pushed two of those to tiebreakers. Corpus opened up a 3-1 lead with wins on the fourth, fifth and sixth courts, but all were incredibly close.
With the temperature dropping and a light mist in the air, things heated up tremendously as the top three courts battled in third sets. Redshirt junior
Sam Whitehead and sophomore
Will Roberts found themselves trailing 5-4 in the third sets on the first and third courts, respectively, and needing to fight to keep the hopes alive. Both came up with massive holds to push their sets to 5-5.
AMCC's
Charalampos Fouzas took the next two games against Roberts in the third match to secure the team victory for the Islanders.
Whitehead kept his foot on the pedal behind a big serve to take the 6-5 lead, but AMCC's
Nathan Favier forced the tiebreaker at 6-6. Favier went up 4:0 in the winner-take-all situation, and Whitehead rallied, but the Islander got to match point up 6:3. Whitehead showed great touch and his competitive fire to win the next five points and secure the 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (8:6) win in the top flight.
Isqueiro also picked up a hard-earned, three-set win in the No. 2 match. He came from behind after dropping a competitive first set to control the next two and get the win. Isqueiro leaned on his big serve and was ripping hard shots from the baseline as he dueled
Tom Berry and captured a 6-7, 6-2, 6-1 win.
The Islanders now lead the Showdown, 23-14, with 10 events left.
The Vaqueros will be back in action Feb. 22 at SMU.
Results
Doubles (1, 3, 2)
1.
Santiago Serrano/
Loic Young Kriegel (UTRGV) def. Tom Berry/Charalampos Fouzas (AMCC) 6-1
2. Nathan Favier/Omar Suarez (AMCC) def.
Sam Whitehead/
Paolo Bonaguro (UTRGV) 6-3
3.
Eduardo Menezes/
Ivo Isqueiro (UTRGV) def. Josef Zapletal/Matthieu Coignet (AMCC) 6-4
Singles (4, 5, 6, 3, 1, 2)
1.
Sam Whitehead (UTRGV) def. Nathan Favier (AMCC) 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (8:6)
2.
Ivo Isqueiro (UTRGV) def. Tom Berry (AMCC) 6-7, 6-2, 6-1
3. Charalampos Fouzas (AMCC) def.
Will Roberts (UTRGV) 6-2, 2-6, 7-5
4. Nicholas Niox (AMCC) def.
Loic Young Kriegel (UTRGV) 6-3, 6-3
5. Nicolas Trebuchet (AMCC) def.
Paolo Bonaguro (UTRGV) 7-6 (10:8), 6-0
6. Omar Suarez (AMCC) def.
Santiago Serrano (UTRGV) 7-6 (7:5), 6-4
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