CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's and women's tennis teams showed out for the South Texas Showdown, as neither team dropped a point for a double header sweep Thursday at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center.
The women opened with a 4-0 play-to-clinch decision over the Vaqueros to move to 9-1 on the year and 28-1 all-time over UTRGV under head coach
Steve Moore. The men then stamped an exclamation win over UTRGV with a clean 7-0 victory to avenge their previous loss this season to the Vaqueros. The Islanders men are now 26-4 all-time over UTRGV under Moore.
"I thought today was played with Islander fight, that has been the trademark of this team! I thought these Islanders really made a statement today about who we are and how we fight. UTRGV is very good in both the men's and women's, very well coached and very tough. I always respect them and this rivalry. But I just felt these Islanders were committed to fight as hard as we could every point! Sometimes you win from the outside in with talent and strokes, but the great competitors also win from the inside out with heart, guts, and mental toughness! Today, we won from the inside out and I'm proud of these mentally tough, hard fighting Islanders!" said Moore.
The women (9-1) began tough with the doubles, as
Valeria Cherfus/
Kateryna Rublevska won quick at court three before
Ana Veroux/Paulina Saulevich capped the doubles point with a 6-3 win at court two.
Cherfus garnered her second win of the day with a 6-2, 6-1 victory at No. 4 singles. Seniors
Emma Aucagne and
Naomi Moi McKenzie then finally got their fix with respective wins in their singles duals. McKenzie finished first with a 6-1, 6-0 win at No. 2 before Aucagne clinched the match after grinding out a 6-3, 6-3 decision at No. 1.
The women were up on every other court before the clinching point.
The men (8-2) required more digging, as the doubles point didn't come easy.
Antoine Vicaire/
Matthieu Coignet helped set a tone with a 6-2 victory at No. 2 doubles. Both courts one and three required extra games, and inevitably it was
Lucas Schurdevin/
Nicolas Trebuchet at No. 3 doubles who came back from being down 5-3 to force a tiebreaker and win that 7-3 to clinch the first point of the match.
Schurdevin helped build on the lead with two 6-3 sets at No. 3 singles for a 2-0 lead in the match.
Iannis Fernandes went in at No. 4 and took down his UTRGV opponent 6-1, 6-4 to make it a 3-0 match. On the verge of clinching,
Etienne Marty went down 5-1 and stormed back for an overruling 7-5 victory in the first set. He then applied copious pressure to clinch the match with a 6-1 set two score.
The men decided to play out the rest of the duals, and it was Vicaire who got the next point for the Islanders after shaking off a first set loss to take down UTRGV 6-0, 6-2 in sets two and three at No. 5 singles. Trebuchet finished next at 6-4, 6-2 at court six and all eyes came down to veteran
Avery Zavala at No. 1.
Zavala opened with a gusty 7-6 (0) set one win before allowing UTRGV to tie the dual up in the second. Down 4-3 in the third, Zavala dug deep to win the next three straight games to reverse the score and complete the 7-0 sweep over the Vaqueros.
Both teams move to 6-0 on the year when playing at home. The women extend their home winning streak to 40 straight matches, spanning over the last four seasons.
The Islanders add six more points towards the South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, an annual rivalry series in which the institutions compete against each other in 12 sports. A&M-Corpus Christi leads the all-time series 5-2 and is now leading this year's competition 30.5 to 17.5.
A&M-Corpus Christi Tennis
- 16 NCAA Tournaments
- 33 SLC Championships
- 4 Top-40 National Rankings
- 3.0 GPA 41 Straight Semesters
- Islanders have received a No. 3 seed at the NCAA Tournament three times
- Women's tennis has cracked the ITA top-75 national rankings three times
- Men's tennis has cracked the ITA national rankings 10 consecutive years
- Ranked nationally in NCAA DI as high as No. 35 for the men and No. 60 for the women
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