Texas A&M
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Mississippi State
10th-ranked Aggie Men's Tennis beats Mississippi State, 4-3
Jan 29, 2011 | Men's Tennis
Jan. 29, 2011
COLLEGE STATION, Texas--Texas A&M senior All-American Austin Krajicek returned from a tournament in Hawaii earlier in the week to help propel the 10th-ranked Aggies to a 4-3 win over #40 Mississippi State at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center in the opening round of the ITA Men's Tennis Kick-Off Weekend. The Aggies will advance to a 3 p.m. match on Sunday against the winner of Arizona vs. Miami.
Krajicek (Brandon, FL) and his All-American doubles teammate Jeff Dadamo (Tampa, FL) cruised to an 8-3 victory to open the match at the No. 1 line of doubles. At the No. 3 line, the Bulldogs tandem of Malte Stropp and Louis Cant topped the Aggies team of Alberto Bautista (McAllen, TX) and Colin Hoover (Victoria, TX), 8-3.
The crucial doubles point came to the No. 2 line where an Aggie freshman, Junior Ore (Gaithersburg, MD) and an A&M senior Alexey Grigorov (Moscow, Russia) fought back to tie the match at eight games each and won the tiebreaker, 7-3, to earn the doubles point for A&M.
"I felt like the double point was key," Aggie head coach Steve Denton said. "It was really important to get that point on the board and winning in that manner for Junior (Ore) and Alexey (Grigorov) should be good for their confidence. We knew Mississippi State was a good solid team and they fought the entire match."
Krajicek handled the travel back from the islands very well posting the first singles point by winning, 6-2, 6-3 at the No. 1 position. The clinching match was over at the No. 6 line where sophomore Niall Angus (London, England) took care of MSU's Zach White, 6-4, 6-4. In between, Dadamo earned the point at the No. 2 position by taking out Artem Ilyushin, 6-1, 7-5.
This marked the 19thstraight match victory for A&M at the Mitchell Tennis Center. The last loss was to Fresno State in the opener of last year's ITA Kick-Off event.
"We talked about the adversity last year and the fact we had to battle to advance," Denton said. "I think our experience helped and Niall (Angus) has been playing well in practice the last couple of weeks and earned his opportunity and made the most of it. That is one thing about this Aggie team, we have a lot of good players and the decision to have the right guy in the lineup at the right time is crucial. Depth is a strength of our team."
Jan. 29, 2011
#10 Texas A&M 4, #40 Mississippi State 3
George P. Mitchell Tennis Center
College Station, TX
Doubles
#1 (1) Krajicek/Dadamo, A&M def. Coupland/Chaudry, MSU, 8-3
#2 Ore/Grigorov, A&M def. Ilyushin/White, MSU, 9-8 (7-3)
#3 Stropp/Cant, MSU def. (32) Bautista/Hoover, A&M, 8-3
Singles
#1 (23) Austin Krajicek, A&M def. George Coupland, MSU, 6-2, 6-3
#2 (54) Jeff Dadamo, A&M def.Artem Ilyusin, MSU, 6-1, 7-5
#3 Malte Stropp, MSU def. Alexey Grigorov, A&M, 2-6, 7-5 (10-3)
#4 James Chaudry, MSU def. Colin Hoover, A&M, 4-6, 6-1 (13-11)
#5 (60) Louis Cant, MSU def. Alberto Bautista, A&M 6-3, 7-6 (7-2)
#6 Niall Angus, A&M def. Zach White, MSU, 6-4, 6-4
Order of Finish:
Doubles 1, 3, 2 (pt A&M)
Singles 1, 2, 6*, 3, 4, 5
*Clinched the match
Next Match vs. winner of Arizona/Miami, Sunday at 3 pm
Players Mentioned
