The college tennis season is finally back: Vanderbilt University men's tennis team will play today at the ITA All-American Championships, hosted by Tulsa. The Commodores began their fall season last weekend at the SEC Challenge, where senior pairing Nathan Cox and Michael Ross won their draw.
Cox and Ross took first place in the White draw, defeating opponents Auburn, Florida and Oklahoma. Hugo Coquelin and Henry Ruger finished fourth. Dylan Charlap and Callum Markowitz took the court as Commodores for the first time, with the freshman duo taking sixth place in the White draw. Tighe Brunetti and Giuseppe Cerasuolo lost to Auburn in the final of the Houndstooth draw.
The season opener gave the team less than a week to prepare for the All-Americans. Danil Panarins recovery time was even shorter: The sophomore competed Tuesday through Thursday at the ITF M15 Futures tournament in Arkansas. With that in mind, Brown opted for a change in preparation.
Head coach Scott Brown expained: "Coming into the SEC Challenge, we saw a little bit of everything, which is typical for the first tournament. The biggest thing is it was a great opportunity to see where the guys were at and everything. We've been working really hard in the fitness department, building their base and everything, so we knew the goal wasn't to come into that tournament with fresh legs.
The goal was to play matches and get ready for the All-Americans the following weekend. I think the guys that have been here, like Nathan and Mike, compared to this time last year, were in a much better position, playing a lot better tennis, competing better. It was nice to see them win their draw. I thought Mike was the MVP of the weekend, to be honest. He won all three of his singles matches and competed great. It was also nice to see Henry Ruger fight for the first time as a Commodore.
He's an animal in the way he competes, the guy thrives in a competitive format. It was good for the guys to see him because he's going to be a good leader in the way he goes about his business out there. There were a lot of positives for our team this weekend. A lot of these guys are in a lot better shape than they were last year, which is great to see. This week is a short change.
The biggest thing we tried to do is get these guys out of this last tournament fresh for the All-Americans. They played the games, they put in the work and now this week is all about getting the guys that are playing as much rest as possible. We didn't over-commit, we focused more on quality and making sure our bodies were rested for this weekend."
