Alabama Men’s Tennis Opens 2021 Dual-Match Slate Saturday with a Pair of Wins over Samford

Saturday, January 16

Tuscaloosa, Ala.

11 AM & 3 PM

Alabama

Samford (DH)

Alabama Men’s Tennis Opens 2021 Dual-Match Slate Saturday with a Pair of Wins over Samford

1/16/2021 6:56:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

The Crimson Tide won the first match of the double header 6-1 and the second 5-2

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Alabama men's tennis team opened its 2021 dual-match season by sweeping its double header with Samford on Saturday at the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Tennis Facility in Tuscaloosa.

All nine of the Crimson Tide's singles wins on the day came in straight sets, while two of its four doubles wins came in tiebreakers. The Crimson Tide has now started off the dual-match season at 2-0 for the fifth year in a row.

Match One | Alabama 6, Samford 1

Edson Ortiz and Marcelo Sepulveda Garza opened the Tide's first dual match of 2021 with a win at No. 1 doubles, while Gabriel Diaz Freire and Zhe Zhou clinched the doubles point at No. 3
Vincent Rettke made short work of his opponent at No. 5 to snag Alabama's first singles point, with Patrick Kaukovalta following shortly after with a win at No. 1
Riccardo Roberto clinched the match for UA with a win at No. 3, securing UA's opening win of the season
With the match in hand, Zhou and Diaz Freire picked up wins at No. 2 and No. 6, respectively
Samford got its lone win of the first match at No. 3 to close the session

Match Two | Alabama 5, Samford 2

All three doubles matches in the second dual of the day took seven points to win
Alabama came away with the doubles point when Kaukovalta and Roberto along with Alexey Nesterov and Sepulveda Garza won their matches in tiebreakers at No. 1 and No. 3, respectively
Nesterov earned Alabama's first singles point at No. 5, followed by Jeremy Gschwendtner at No. 4
Zhou clinched the day's second dual match with a straight-set victory at No. 1
Sepulveda Garza picked up a win at No. 6 after the match was decided
Samford won at No. 2 to extend the match before the Tide picked up its fourth win, and at No. 3 to close out the day

Up Next

Alabama goes right back to work on Sunday with a double header against North Alabama
The first match gets underway at 1 p.m., while the second is slated to start play at 5 p.m.
Both matches are set to be streamed live – Match 1 | Match 2

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