After losing two matches to No. 4 Georgia and No. 39 Nebraska last week at the 2012 ITA Kickoff Weekend, the TCU men’s tennis team hopes to earn two wins this weekend on the road.

Mississippi State, currently ranked No. 14, will take on TCU tonight and the Frogs will wrap up their road trip against No. 49 Alabama on Sunday.
Freshman and Argentina native Facundo Lugones said although the team fought hard in last week’s matches, they did not compete well.

“Those are not the same, we made some errors in key moments,” Lugones said.

Mississippi State earned a 4-0 win over No. 63 Princeton but were brought down by Texas A&M who defeated the Bulldogs 4-3. Roditi said Friday’s match would be a rough battle.

“Mississippi State has six very experienced players, they beat us here last year,” Roditi said. “They didn’t lose anybody, they only added to that team so we have our hands full,” he added.

Roditi said he had purposely made their schedule difficult in order to be successful.

“To be the best you’ve got to beat the best,” Roditi said.

Alabama will also prove to be a tough opponent. The Crimson Tide defeated UC-Irvine (4-1) at the ITA tournament last weekend and currently has three nationally ranked players on their roster.

Roditi said although sophomore Tennessee transfer Max Stevens and USC transfer junior JT Sundling have played collegiate tennis for the past few years, they both have not had a lot of experience playing singles.

The unforeseen loss of junior Orlando Superlano with a knee injury is another setback for the Frogs, and Roditi said that other leaders would have to emerge if the team wants to be successful.

“We’ve talked all year about dealing with adversity, but we didn’t think it would happen in the very first match,” Roditi said. “He brought such a passionate outlook into tennis and fired everybody up, so somebody else is going to have to step up and do that.”

With the contribution of outstanding freshman Nick Chappell and a good team attitude, Roditi said the team will continue to fight through the struggle and come out on top this weekend.

Roditi said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”