LAWTON, OKLA. – The Patriots men's program came away with a victory to start LSC play 1-0 while the Patriots women's program just fell to Cameron in a battle to fall to 0-1 in LSC play.
For the Patriots men, they put on a dazzling display in the doubles portion of their match against the Aggies. The duo of
Gonzalo Fernandez Gil and Mortiz Mayer continues to impress as they ran away with a big 6-1 victory.
That win gave the Patriots the first of two necessary wins to secure the doubles point, and the pair of
Joaquin Bianchi and
Jonas Dixon wasted no time in delivering the second win. The duo played in the #2 doubles position and handled the Aggies with authority by a score of 6-2.
With the doubles point in hand, UT Tyler turned to singles and looked to finish the job. However, Cameron had other plans, and took the first three matches of singles to put all of the pressure right back on the Patriots.
In the #1 singles slot, Bianchi battled but came up short by scores of 6-2, 6-2. Fernandez Gil took on the #2 singles slot, but also came up short 6-1, 7-5. In the #3 singles slot,
Safar Rasulov came up with a 7-5 victory in set one, but Cameron responded with two straight set wins of 6-3 and 6-2 to claim the match.
Down 3-1 and needing three wins to earn the match victory, the Patriots turned to Mayer to try and turn the momentum back in the favor of UT Tyler. Mayer responded with a big straight sets win of 6-4, 6-3 to put the Patriots back on the board.
Yudai Watanabe has turned into a singles specialist for UT Tyler, and he flashed that excellence yet again as he won in straight sets by scores of 6-4, 6-4. That evened the match up at three points each, and brought things down to the final match between
Jonas Dixon and Alvaro Chavez.
Dixon and Chavez battled closely in the first set, with Dixon narrowly winning the first set in a tiebreaker by a score of 7-6 (7-5). In set two, he responded strongly and outlasted Chavez by a score of 6-4 to come away with the win for the Patriots.
UT Tyler's women's program faced a stern test as the Cameron women's program is currently ranked #5 in the country. However, that did not deter the Patriots as they gave the Aggies all they could handle as they pushed the match to the brink.
In doubles, the two programs split the opening two matches as Cameron took down the combination of
Delara Zamani and
Leony Deutschmann by a score of 6-4. However, the pair of Tankvikhaa Saravanan and
Chloe Dix battled right back and put the Patriots on the board with a 6-4 victory of their own.
That left the doubles point to the #2 doubles match.
Brooklyn Ross and
Chloe Chawner paired up in the match against Vasilisa Polunova and Karolina Glowinska of Cameron. The match was extremely hard fought and a tiebreaker was forced, but ultimately it was the Cameron duo that prevailed 7-6 (7-5).
In singles, the Patriots got off to a hot start as they prevailed in both the #1 and #2 singles matches. Zamani posted a dominating victory of 6-1, 6-0 as she never trailed in her match. Deutschmann also posted a strong victory of 6-4, 6-2 after coming back from an 0-2 deficit in the first set.
Cameron responded to the two wins by taking the #3 and #4 singles matches over
Kanika Sivaraman and Ross. Sivaraman fell by a score of 6-3, 6-2. Ross forced a third and final set in her match after splitting the first two sets 5-7, 6-3. With the match on the line, it was Cameron who came out on top in the third set by a score of 6-4.
With the Patriots on the ropes, Saravanan stepped up in the #5 singles position and delivered a big comeback victory to claim a point. Her set scores were 6-7, 6-4, 6-3.
After the Saravanan victory, the match came down to the #6 singles slot, and
Chloe Chawner fought hard but ultimately came up just short after forcing a third set. That gave Cameron the 4-3 victory in an extremely hard fought match.
