Vanderbilt Men’s Tennis kicked off its 2024 fall season this past weekend by sending athletes to two invitational tournaments. Eight Commodores traveled to Tuscaloosa, Ala. to compete in the SEC Challenge, while four others traveled to Middle Tennessee State University to participate in the Blue Raider Invite. Danil Panarin, the reigning SEC Freshman of the Year, was absent from both rosters as he chose to stay in Nashville and prepare for the ITF M15 Futures Tournament, which will begin on Monday, Sept. 16.
The Commodores started their year off with a bang, playing 49 matches on the weekend across the two locations. A rally from doubles pair Nathaniel Cox and Michael Ross highlighted these matches and won the White Draw at the SEC Challenge.
SEC Challenge
The competing doubles teams at the 2024 SEC Challenge were divided across three brackets: the Crimson Draw and the White Draw were each made up of eight teams, and the Houndstooth Draw consisted of four. For all matchups, the opposing teams played a doubles match followed by two singles matches. The duo that won two out of the three total matches advanced to the winner’s side of the draw.
In the Crimson Draw, Vanderbilt’s Hugo Coquelin and Henry Ruger opened their tournament with a victory over Ole Miss’ Noah Schlagenhauf and Isac Stromberg. In singles, Ruger was defeated by Schlagenhauf 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-0, but Coquelin emerged victorious after three sets to send the Commodores to the right side of the draw.
The White Draw featured two Vanderbilt teams: duos Dylan Charlap/Callum Markowitz and Nathan Cox/Michael Ross. Both pairings began their fall seasons with wins, as Charlap and Markowitz won a tight 8-6 match, and Cox and Ross reeled in an 8-4 victory. In singles, Charlap and Markowitz were both defeated in two sets, eliminating them from contention in their draw. The Commodores were dealt another blow when Cox was unable to hold on against Auburn’s Will Nolan, falling 6-0, 6-7(5), 4-6. However, Ross won in straight sets, and Vanderbilt saw one of its teams advance to the right of the White Draw.
With only four teams, the Houndstooth draw was played in a round robin format. Vanderbilt’s Tighe Brunetti and Giuseppe Cerasuolo were defeated in the first round by another Ole Miss duo. The Commodores dropped the initial doubles match, but Brunetti bounced back in individual play with a two-set victory. Cerasuolo ultimately lost his singles match in straight sets, sending Vanderbilt into round two with a loss.
After the first day of the SEC Challenge, only Cox/Ross and Coquelin/Ruger were fighting for first place. The other two Commodore pairs were sent to their respective consolation brackets.
On Day 2 of the SEC Challenge, Coquelin and Ruger saw their upward momentum end with a doubles loss to Alabama pair Andrii Zimnokh and Roan Jones. Zimnokh and Jones bested the Commodores individually as well, forcing Coquelin and Ruger out in the semifinals of the Crimson Draw.
The remaining Commodores fared much better in the White Draw, as both teams secured a win against their opponents. Cox and Ross pulled off an 8-4 doubles win, and after Cox lost his individual match, Ross earned a 6-1, 6-1 victory to send them to the White Draw finals. Additionally, Charlap and Markowitz returned to form after losing their Day 1 matchup. The pair won 8-5 in doubles, while Markowitz claimed a straight-set victory to give the Vanderbilt duo a chance for a fifth-place finish.
The Black and Gold also delivered a solid performance on Day 2 of the Houndstooth Draw. Brunetti and Cerasuolo won their doubles match against the Florida Gators, and freshman Cerasuolo earned his first career singles victory (6-4, 6-2) to move Vanderbilt forward after Brunetti suffered a straight-set defeat.
On the third and final day of the SEC Challenge, Coquelin and Ruger lost a close 8-6 doubles match against Auburn. Ruger recovered to win his singles match against Billy Blades, but Coquelin ended his weekend with a singles loss in straight sets to Nick Heng. That put the Vanderbilt pair in fourth place in the Crimson Draw.
The White Draw saw the most impressive Vanderbilt weekend performance. After losing a devastatingly close doubles match to Oklahoma’s Oscar Lacides and Bruno Nhavene by an 8-7(5) score, Ross and Cox rallied to become the White Draw champions. Cox defeated Lacides in a three-set nailbiter, 3-6, 6-4, 10-8, and Ross followed with an equally tight victory against Nhavene, 6-2, 5-7, 11-9.
Charlap and Markowitz competed for fifth place in the draw, but the duo came up short. After falling in doubles to Alabama, Charlap secured a win after his opponent Carlos Gimenez Perez retired during the first set. However, Markowitz was defeated 6-4, 6-4 by Damien Nezar, and the Commodores settled for sixth place.
In the Houndstooth Draw, Brunetti and Cerasuolo were narrowly defeated 8-6 in doubles. While Cerasuolo was victorious in a three-set duel with Auburn’s Thomas Kennedy (7-6(3), 2-6, 10-5), Brunetti lost in straight sets to Joey Phillips. With this defeat, the Vanderbilt pair placed third in the Houndstooth draw.
Blue Raider Invite
Vanderbilt sent four athletes — Jack Ingram, Oscar Jensen, Nick Roddy and Paul Wang — to participate in the Blue Raider Invitational. The other competing teams were Indiana, Lipscomb, Middle Tennessee and Tennessee.
Vanderbilt was paired up against Lipscomb and Tennessee on the first day of competition. To begin the match, Ingram and Wang were handily defeated by Tennessee’s duo of Shunsuke Mitsui and Alan Jesudason, 6-1. The Commodores quickly made up for the lost point when Jensen and Roddy defeated Lipscomb duo Henrique Ushizima and Oskr Szymchekc. In singles play, Vanderbilt failed to muster a win against staunch competition, as Ingram fell in straight sets at the hands of the ITA No.10, Mitsui. Jensen and Wang also lost in straight sets to Alejandro Moreno (Tennessee) and Henrique Ushizima (Lipscomb), respectively.
Saturday was another rough day for the Commodores, as they failed to capture a win on the singles or doubles side. The Commodores played just one doubles match as Jensen and Roddy fell to Indiana’s Breden Gelletick and Ben Pomerantes, 6-4.
In singles, Ingram fell in straight sets (6-1, 6-0) to Pomerantes. Jensen took on Indiana’s Luc Boulier for the Commodores’ second singles match of the day, and despite sending the first set to a tiebreaker, Jensen lost in straight sets, 7-5 and 6-2. Wang also fell at the hands of the Hoosiers as he was defeated by Gelletich, 6-2 and 6-1. Roddy rounded out the second day of competition, playing perhaps the team’s most competitive singles match thus far against Matteo Antonescu. Roddy won the first set in a 7-6 tiebreaker, but Antonescu gave Roddy little room in the remaining sets, winning 6-3 and 6-1.
The Vanderbilt quartet returned to the court on the final day of competition, where they came away with their best performance of the weekend, winning one doubles and two singles matches. Although Ingram and Wang fell 6-3 in their doubles match against MTSU’s Rostislav Halfinger and Jakub Kroslak, Roddy and Jensen willed the team to .500 on the doubles side with a 6-4 win over Tennessee Tech’s Lucas Bitzer and Oliver Dao.
Ingram started the Black and Gold off on the right foot in singles play with a three-set win over Tennessee Tech’s Murilo Burckhardt, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Jensen also won three sets. After losing the first set 4-6, he settled in and won the next two sets 6-4, 7-5. Wang and Roddy rounded out the weekend for Vanderbilt as both fell in straight sets to Tennessee Tech’s Alex Alvarez and Oliver Dao.
Vanderbilt Men’s Tennis will return to action Nov. 1, traveling to Atlanta, Ga. to compete in the Georgia Tech Invite.
