Men's Tennis Takes on Vanderbilt and Kentucky this Weekend
3/22/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
March 22, 2012
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The men's tennis team (6-8, 1-3 SEC) will take on Vanderbilt (6-8, 1-3 SEC) in Nashville on Friday at 2 p.m. CT before returning to Tuscaloosa to face off against No. 7 Kentucky (16-4, 4-0 SEC) on Sunday at 1 p.m. CT.
"Vanderbilt is a well-coached team and it's an important match for us in the conference," said Alabama head coach Billy Pate. "It's always a challenge on the road in the SEC, so we'll need to play well in every area. Sunday will be another challenging match for us as we take on the Wildcats, but we will look forward to playing that one in front of our home crowd."
Alabama stepped out of SEC action last week, taking on Miami in Coral Gables, where the Crimson Tide fell 5-2 to the Hurricanes. Alabama picked up a pair of 8-4 victories in doubles to win the early point with wins on courts one and three. In singles, Miami evened the match with a win on court five. Ricky Doverspikethen gave Alabama the lead with his 6-2, 7-6 victory at No. 2, but from there, the Hurricanes would go on to win the final four singles contests to take the match, all of which were decided in three sets.
Vanderbilt split its last two matches, falling 6-1 to No. 10 Florida before earning a 4-3 win over South Carolina. Vanderbilt has one nationally ranked singles player in No. 47 Charlie Jones and one nationally ranked doubles duo in No. 45 Gonzales Austin and Alex DiValerio.
Alabama leads the all-time series with the Commodores 37-20 with Vanderbilt winning the last match 4-3 in Tuscaloosa.
Kentucky also split its last two matches, falling 4-3 to Baylor before picking up a 5-1 victory against Murray State. The Wildcats currently boast six nationally ranked singles players in No. 5 Eric Quigley, No. 21 Alex Musialek, No. 28 Anthony Rossi, No. 99 Alejandro Gomez, No. 101 Tom Jomby and No. 116 Panav Ja. Kentucky also has one nationally ranked doubles pair in No. 17 Ja and Quigley.
The Tide has a 23-19-1 edge in the series against the Wildcats, with the last meeting going Kentucky's way with a 5-2 win over Alabama in Lexington.
Live scoring will be available for both matches. Friday's scores can by found by , and Sunday's scores can be found by .
Players Mentioned
