No. 10 TCU men’s tennis will look to end the home portion of their schedule with one more win against No. 8 Texas A&M.
“It’s a huge match. We need to beat some of these top-ranked teams,” head coach David Roditi said. “For us to stay in the top 10, we need to beat top teams. A&M will be another opportunity.
The Frogs are coming off a 1-6 home loss against No. 4 Texas, the first match all season where the Frogs were swept in singles.
Texas A&M had a rocky start to the season, going 3-3 in their first six matches. After three consecutive losses, the Aggies never looked back en route to a 15-game win streak that was only broken by a loss to No. 2 Florida.
Since the loss, the Aggies defeated Kentucky 6-1 and Vanderbilt 4-3. Their overall record stands at 19-4.
TCU opened the season with a 2-5 loss at Tulsa, but followed up with four straight wins before running into their first home loss at the hands of Florida.
An 11-1 run followed before Big 12 play began, including wins over top 15 teams in Mississippi State, UCLA, and Columbia. A Baylor loss and Texas loss have dropped the Frogs’ record to 16-5 overall.
The Aggies sport one ranked doubles team, No. 16 Juan Carlos Aguilar and Barnaby Smith, who own a 10-3 doubles record on the year.
A&M owns four ranked player spots, yet none of them are inside the top 30. Valentin Vacherot leads the way for the Aggies, holding the No. 40 spot in the ITA rankings. He has a 12-2 record from the No. 3 singles position.
Despite a fairly low ranking at No. 75, Hady Habib has an impressive 11-3 record at the No. 2 singles spot and will make a difficult challenge for TCU’s No. 2, No. 20 Alastair Gray.
“They have some younger guys as well, I think we can take advantage of that,” Roditi said. “I think A&M, they’re some spots that we need to come out and beat them.”
The match begins at 5:30 p.m. Monday.