Vanderbilt Men’s Tennis earned a win over in-state rival Tennessee Monday, Feb. 23, at the Lummis Family Tennis Center. The Commodores lost their SEC opener Feb. 21 to Mississippi State but were able to bounce back against the Volunteers to improve to 9-3 on the season.
Vanderbilt raced out to an early lead after securing the doubles point and never looked back, eventually securing the victory, 4-2, to beat Tennessee for the first time since 2018.
“One thing we talked about after the Mississippi State match was our mindset,” head coach Scott Brown said. “We left thinking everyone else is going to find out what the Commodores are made of; the SEC is going to find out how tough we are, and Tennessee is going to find out how tough we are. And I think that mindset showed today.”
Vanderbilt snagged the doubles point to jump out to an early lead. The pair of Jack Satterfield and Hugo Coquelin lost 6-2 at the No. 3 spot to begin the match, but the Commodores’ pairs at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots were able to cruise to victory. The duo of Nathan Cox and Hoyoung Roh took down Jose Garcia and Piotr Siekanowicz, 6-3, while Pablo Martinez Gomez and Danil Panarin defeated Ethan Muza and Shion Itsusaki, 6-4.
With the doubles point secured, Vanderbilt immediately went to work in singles. Cox kicked things off, securing a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jan Kobierski. Tennessee picked up a win at the No. 2 singles spot, but Martinez Gomez earned a win over Dragos Cazacu, 6-2, 6-2, to give Vanderbilt the 3-1 lead.
Satterfield then fell to Boruch Skierkier in straight sets, leaving Vanderbilt to need just one more point to secure the victory. Roh sealed the victory with a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 58 Alejandro Moreno. The freshman earned the victory in rather dramatic fashion, losing the first set before winning the second. After going game-for-game in most of the last set, Roh finally broke Moreno’s serve to finish the match — the first break of that set.
“We knew this would be a culture match and a character match,” Brown said. “I am really proud of the guys. We didn’t play anywhere near our best, but we were just a little bit tougher than Tennessee in the big moments, and that’s what decided the match. Today was not a pretty match; it was gritty, and that’s how these matches are. In a lot of these contests, it doesn’t come down to tennis, it comes down to how you handle the moment.”
Vanderbilt now begins a stretch of four away matches, starting with Oklahoma Feb. 27 in Norman, Oklahoma.
