The Alabama men’s tennis team could not end its SEC season Sunday on a high note. The Crimson Tide lost to the Tennessee Volunteers 4-2. Alabama finishes its season with a 12-14 record.
“Overall we’ve had a lot of nail-biters, we’ve had some great wins, and then all the losses we’ve had have been by a few points. That’s just how it goes sometimes,” junior Stuart Kenyon said. “We are building every day, every month, every year. Next year we will be back at it and hopefully those nail-biters will be going our way.”
(See also “Men’s tennis team splits Friday matches“)
The Crimson Tide found itself in a hole early. It lost the doubles point to begin the match. Junior Andrew Goodwin and freshman Nikko Madregallejo lost on court 3 8-3. Senior Daniil Proskura and sophomore Becker O’Shaughnessey evened it up on court 1 with an 8-6 win. Court 2 could not get it done, though. Freshman Sean Donohue and Kenyon lost 8-6.
“Clearly the doubles point would’ve helped us; we fought, so I can’t really ask for anything else than that,” coach George Husack said.
Despite the loss, it was a special day for senior Proskura. Proskura, who is ranked No. 25 in the nation for singles, finished his Alabama career on a high note with an 8-6 win in doubles against the No. 1 doubles team in America. Hunter Reese and Mikelis Libietis were upset by Proskura and O’Shaughnessey.
(See also “Men’s tennis to use momentum against Aggies“)
“The guy is a workhorse. I love him. [His maturity] as a player and just a young man is incredible. He’s really the definition of a student athlete,” Husack said. “He’s going to be a big loss, but he set a standard for this program.”
When singles started, court 3 finished first. Madregallejo lost 6-2, 6-4. Court 6 finished next with another Volunteer victory. Tennessee’s Bartosz Sawwicki beat Donohue 6-3, 6-4. Tennessee was up 3-0.
Then, Alabama began to make a comeback. O’Shaughnessey won a tightly contested match 6-4, 7-6 to make it 3-1. Then Kenyon took court 4 6-1, 5-7, 6-4. The comeback came up short, though, when Tennessee’s Andrew Dromsky won 7-6(7), 6-4 over junior Andrew Goodwin on court 5 to clinch the 4-2 win for Tennessee.
“I think we gave it 100 percent, and today a few points went different ways, and if we got the doubles point it could’ve been a different story. It’s tough, but you move on to the next one,” Kenyon said.
(See also “Tide women’s tennis team defeats Aggies“)
