After a busy final home weekend, the Alabama men’s tennis team (14-14, 4-8 SEC) will enter the SEC Tournament as the No. 10 seed Thursday at noon in Nashville.
The Crimson Tide will open play against seventh seeded South Carolina. The two teams previously met March 21, when Alabama was outlasted by the Gamecocks and fell 4-3.
(See also “Men’s tennis team suffer loss to Trojans“)
Alabama came from behind to win the doubles point and also posted singles from Daniil Proskura and Becker O’Shaughnessey, but were not able to edge the Gamecocks.
Coach George Husack said while having played South Carolina in such a close match earlier this season will be helpful, it is more important that the team focus on competing in the match at hand and its own game rather than on its opponent.
“We’re going to be right there with them,” Husack said. “But, really, it’s not about them. We know what we have to do, and the tournament brings a lot of excitement. We have to keep competing. It will help having faced them, but in the end it’s us competing.”
The close match with South Carolina was representative of a larger theme of the season for the young team. The Crimson Tide often found itself in close matches, but struggled in edging its opponents.
Husack said going into the tournament, it is important for the team to believe that it is capable of closing in on close matches and that the struggles of the season are a building block for the future, both near and far.
“Everything is earned, and as painful as some of these losses have been, they have gotten so much stronger as competitors,” Husack said. “They will reap the rewards from this season at some point down the road, and it could be as early as this Thursday.”
(See also “Men’s tennis to use momentum against Aggies“)
The Crimson Tide’s record after this weekend will determine whether or not the team will advance in postseason play to the NCAA tournament, making wins in close matches paramount as it enters the SEC tournament.
“The bottom line is we win, we go; we lose, we don’t,” Husack said. “So there’s nothing to hide. We know we’re capable of winning, and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
Freshman team member Nikko Madregallejo said a large factor in this season’s matches has been the age of the Alabama team, which featured only one senior.
“It’s tough, because we have such a young team,” Madregallejo said. “The experience isn’t where it is compared to some other teams. But all we can really do is work hard and do our best and see what happens.”
As his freshman season comes to a close, Madregallejo said it is important for the Crimson Tide to remember the lessons of this season as it advances into postseason play and the next year.
“All the teams we’ve played haven’t been easy,” Madregallejo said. “It’s an up and down process. Every detail, everything we do in the matches, everything we do in practice matters so much. It’s just a huge process.”
(See also “Tide women’s tennis defeats Aggies“)
