ORLANDO, Fla. – North Carolina A&T men's tennis kept its record unblemished on Thursday despite the tremendous amount of competition the Aggies have received while on spring break at the United States Tennis Association (USTA) National Campus in Florida.
On Thursday, A&T's latest close call was a 4-3 win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) at the USTA National Campus. The Aggies completed their spring break trip 5-0 and will return to the east side of Greensboro 9-0 overall.
The Aggies had an outstanding start to the day by sweeping the doubles point to take a 1-0 lead. No. 3 doubles, manned by junior Mathieu Dussaubat and sophomore Kaua Santos, defeated the RPI duo of Archit Yemula and Quoc-Uy Vo 6-2. At No. 1 doubles, sophomore Said Akbarov and senior Ian Pedersen officially secured the doubles point for the Aggies with a 6-4 win over Aiden Drover-Mattinen and Andy Zhu 6-4.
"We started a little bit slow, making a few mistakes," said Pedersen. "Toward the end, we started playing better and took the match."
Freshman Jindrich Brill and sophomore Lucas Coupo-Moison topped off the successful doubles portion of the match with a 6-4 win over Tsubi Okada and Joel McCandless 6-4. The singles portion of the match got interesting and super competitive.
Drover-Mattinen established the Engineers as a series contender at No. 1 singles with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Pedersen. It was a heartbreaking loss for Pedersen, who led 3-0 in the first before Drover-Mattinen broke his serve and rallied to win.
"I relaxed too much and started to make too many mistakes," said Pedersen. "I couldn't find my way back in the match."
Despite that, Coupo-Moison uplifted his teammate by winning at No. 2 singles, 6-2, 6-3, over Yemula. Akbarov also secured a win in singles, defeating Okada 6-2, 7-5 at No. 4 singles. Brill brought it home for A&T at No. 5 singles. He defeated Tasmay Shah 6-3, 7-6, 8-6 in the tiebreaker.
"It was a tough match from the beginning," said Brill. "I stayed strong on my serve in the important moments and broke his serve in the first. The second set was even tougher. We played so many rallies, but I finished the match with more intensity than him and won."
Two thrilling three-set matches followed, starting with Dussaubat and RPI's Nico Luis at No. 6 singles. Luis dominated the first set before Dussaubat took over the second. Luis prevailed by winning 7-6, 7-1 in the tiebreaker. Zhu defeated Santos at No. 3 singles, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 to close things out.
Santos said fatigue set in, but he endured. "I was very tired, but as I always do, I brought my energy and fire," said Santos. "Unfortunately, I couldn't take the W for the Aggies."
Dussaubat said he didn't feel his best during his singles match but pushed through the adversity.
"I'm happy for the team's win," he said.
The Aggies return to the classroom on Monday and to competition on Wednesday, March 12, when they host Norfolk State at the Piedmont Indoor Tennis Center at 1 p.m.
