BEAUMONT, Texas – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) men's tennis team battled hard, but ultimately fell, 4-2 to the No. 3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) Islanders in the semifinals of the Southland Conference (SLC) Men's Tennis Tournament Monday at Beaumont Municipal Tennis Center.
The Vaqueros once again shined in the doubles point. The first team all-conference duos of graduate student
Sam Whitehead and sophomore
Loic Young Kriegel and juniors
Ivo Isqueiro and
Santiago Serrano came through for UTRGV.
Whitehead and Young were locked in a battle with
Matthieu Coignet and
Mikel Garmendia on court one. With the match knotted at 3-3, the Vaqueros held to go up 4-3. Then, Whitehead and Young pushed Coignet and Garmendia to break point. With all the pressure on TAMUCC, Whitehead and Young rushed the net and used two overheads to put the game away. The duo held the following game to win 6-3.
On court two, Isqueiro and Serrano fought hard against
Etienne Marty and
Omar Suarez. The match remained on-serve until 3-3 when Isqueiro and Serrano broke to take a 4-3 advantage. The Vaqueros sealed the break with a 4-3 hold to go up 5-3. After trading games, UTRGV won 6-4 to clinch the doubles point.
The match between UTRGV's sophomore
Michael Chan and junior
Paolo Bonaguro and TAMUCC's
Ethan Dasset and
Josef Zapletal was abandoned at 5-5 as both teams continued to hold their serves throughout the set.
In singles play, UTRGV earned their lone win from Whitehead. The team captain went down early, dropping the first set 6-2 to
Nicholas Niox Chateau. All momentum seemed lost when Whitehead was broken to open the second set. However, he bounced back winning the following two games. Then, at 2-2, Whitehead was once again broken. Chateau held to take a 4-2 lead. Whitehead responded by saving two break points to narrow the gap to 4-3. A break by Whitehead evened the set at 4-4.
Then, Whitehead came up clutch once again, digging deep to save three break points at 4-4 and took a 5-4 lead. The pair ended up reaching 6-6 and forcing a deciding tiebreaker. Whitehead took the tiebreak with a 7-6 (7:4) win. In the third set, it was Whitehead that broke first taking a 1-0 lead. He then proceeded to win three of the next four games to take a 4-1 lead. Chateau bounced back, winning the next two to make it 4-3. In his next service game, Whitehead trailed 0-40 but won four consecutive points to hold on to his two-game lead. Whitehead earned the win with clutch returns and volleys.
Whitehead, the 2025 SLC Player of the Year and 2026 First Team All-SLC No. 1 doubles and Second Team All-SLC No. 1 Singles solidified his legacy at UTRGV. He led the Vaqueros to back-to-back second-place conference finishes, their best since the 2014-15 season. Whitehead ended his career on a six-match win streak against conference opponents and tallied a total of 91 wins across singles and doubles in his 5-year career.
TAMUCC clinched the singles match with wins on courts five, four, three, and six.
Isqueiro, the other Vaquero to rally back into his match, led 4-2 in the third set before the match was abandoned. Isqueiro went down fast, trailing 3-0 to open the match. He rallied making it a 5-4 lead for
Omar Suarez. Suarez saved three break points to win the first 6-4.
In the second, Isqueiro was once again broken, trailing 1-0. He managed to knot the set at 3-3 with a break, but Suarez broke once again to take a 4-3 lead. However, Isqueiro bounced back to even the set at 4-4 and held the next game to take a 5-4 lead. Isqueiro took the second set with a third consecutive break of Suarez's serve. Isqueiro leapt out to a 4-0 lead, breaking Suarez's serve another two times before Suarez recovered to take the next two games.
UTRGV forced two other matches to third sets with Serrano jumping out to a huge 6-1 first set win over
Etienne Marty on court three. He won the first three games of the match before surrendering his only game in the set. Marty bounced back, winning the next two sets 6-2, 6-3 to earn TAMUCC's third point of the match.
Chan's match against
Maxime Salesses also went three sets on court six. Chan took a commanding 4-1 lead in the first and proceeded to win 6-3. The second was a back-and-forth battle as Salesses forced a tiebreaker. Chan fought hard but dropped the tiebreaker 7-6 (7:4). Chan and Salesses were neck-and-neck in the third. Chan came through on multiple occasions to save break points and reach 3-3 in the third. Salesses held to go up 4-3 and never looked back, winning the set 6-3 and clinching the overall win for TAMUCC.
Results
Doubles (1, 2)
1.
Sam Whitehead/
Loic Young Kriegel (UTRGV) def. Matthieu Coigned/Mikel Garmendia (TAMUCC), 6-3
2.
Ivo Isqueiro/
Santiago Serrano (UTRGV) def. Etienne Marty/Omar Suarez (TAMUCC), 6-4
3.
Paolo Bonaguro/Tsz Him Chan (UTRGV) vs. Ethan Dasset/Josef Zapletal (TAMUCC), 5-5 uf
Singles (5, 4, 3, 1, 6)
1.
Sam Whitehead (UTRGV) def. Nicholas Niox Chateau (TAMUCC), 2-6, 7-6 (7:4), 6-3
2.
Ivo Isqueiro (UTRGV) vs. Omar Suarez (TAMUCC), 6-4, 4-6, 4-2 uf
3. Etienne Marty (TAMUCC) def.
Santiago Serrano (UTRGV), 1-6, 6-2, 6-3
4. Ethan Dasset (TAMUCC) def.
Loic Young Kriegel (UTRGV), 6-3, 6-4
5. Josef Zapletal (TAMUCC) def.
Will Roberts (UTRGV), 6-1, 7-5
6. Maxime Salesses (TAMUCC) def. Tsz Him Chan (UTRGV), 3-6, 7-6 (7:4), 6-3
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