Although the No. 29 Alabama men’s tennis team lost a close 4-3 match to No. 39 archrival Auburn Saturday in Tuscaloosa, the team is focusing solely on its next match and is determined to come out on top.
Alabama will travel to Lexington, Ky., for the 2010 SEC Men’s Tennis Championships. No. 8 seed Alabama will have its first match against No. 9 seed LSU starting today at 5 p.m.
“We had a home match with Auburn that went down to the wire and didn’t quite end up how we had [expected], so that’s a little disappointing,” said head coach Billy Pate. “I think we kind of need to rebound to get ourselves back on track, and LSU’s going to be a tough opponent. We’re going to have to play a really good match.”
The last time Alabama met LSU was only two weeks ago when the Crimson Tide defeated the Tigers in a close match 4-3.
“The doubles point is a crucial point to winning the match,” said sophomore Ricky Doverspike. “We’re going to go out with the same mentality [as last match] and jump on them early and take away their momentum. We’re going to take it one match at a time.”
Pate and Doverspike said the common denominator between their success has been senior Saketh Myneni. Myneni’s ability to keep his shoulder injury under control, while also playing successfully at number one in both singles and doubles for Alabama, has made him a significant asset to the team.
“His injury has been a big issue all year, and as we’ve gotten closer to the end of the year and matches are a little further apart, he’s been able to grind through them and manage the injury,” Pate said. “He’s been the rock at number one. He’s one of the best players in the country. He’s proven that, and we’re excited about his potential.”
If the Tide defeats the Tigers in the first round of the tournament, they will then move on to play against Tennessee, who are currently ranked No.2 in the county.
“If we beat LSU, we have a lot of work cut out for us because Tennessee beat us pretty handily last time, so we are just going to come out with a lot of fire,” Doverspike said. “We’ve hung in there with all the top teams. We’ve made it to indoors, and we played some good matches there. We definitely can hang with the top teams. It’s just a matter of us all coming together as one and really performing the same day, the same time. And if we can do that we can beat anyone in the country.”
Alabama has proven themselves to be a worthy opponent this season. Against regionally ranked teams. the Tide is 6-6 and 3-8 against nationally ranked teams. But, the team’s overall record of 13-12 does not tell the whole story since one-third of its losses have been within two points.
“The [SEC tournament] is the most important really because it’s our next match, and it’s an opportunity to prepare ourselves for the NCAA tournament,” Pate said. “We always talk about the SEC as the premier conference in the country and certainly in men’s tennis, so it’s a challenge.”
