Aiming for success

The UTRGV Men’s Tennis Team is among the most improved in NCAA Division I, according to a national recruiting agency.

In a news release earlier this summer, University Sports Program ranked the team at 163, up from 236 in 2017.

Head Coach Dann Nelson and the Vaqueros want to continue the improvement for the 2018-2019 season.

During Spring 2018, the men’s tennis team defeated defending Conference USA Champions, Rice University. The last time the program defeated Rice in a tennis match was in 1979.

More historic victories for the Vaqueros included defeating the University of Incarnate Word and 2017 Southland Conference Champions Lamar University.

UTRGV carried the momentum by making an appearance at the 2018 Western Athletic Conference Tournament last spring, when the Vaqueros fell 4-0 in the semifinals against the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

This season, Nelson and the team hope to continue building on the success of last season.

He said that last season, the team made a lot of strides and is hoping to keep that going.

“We had a pretty good season,” Nelson said. “We increased our wins from the year before by six or seven wins and, you know, we beat teams that had our number, like Rice and Lamar. We got Incarnate Word. All three of those teams were conference champions the year previous.

“It was a big deal, you know. We got closer with Texas [A&M] Corpus Christi. We lost to them twice by one point. Men’s and women’s tennis might be their best sport, could be.”

Leading the team is senior Yehonatan Kaufman of Ramat HaSharon, Israel. During the spring, Kaufman went 11-11 in singles and posted his first WAC win of the season after defeating Chicago State’s Rohan Wattley.

He won four straight matches against Nicholls State’s Alvaro Barranco, Southern Utah’s Agustin Tamagnone, Oral Roberts University’s Alvaro Santamaria and Prairie View A&M’s Anirudh Yadav. In doubles, Kaufman went 9-8 with teammates Koby Jansen and Elliot Johnstone.

Juniors Clément Sarradin and Mateo Schmit had quite the season last spring. Sarradin, of Clarensac, France, went 9-11 in singles and grasped a win at the WAC Tournament against Seattle University’s Emilio Monroy.

Sarradin won three matches in a row with wins over Eddy Leardini of Oral Roberts University, Zachary Suico of Prairie View A&M and Enrique Asmar of New Mexico State. Sarradin posted a record of 6-8 in doubles with partners Dennis Boisseau and Zane Kohrs.

Schmit, of Neuquen, Argentina, posted an overall record of 2-8 in singles and picked up his first win of the season against Jared Aiman of Rice University. In doubles, he held a record of 5-8 with partners Johnstone and Boisseau.

Texas natives Kohrs, of Dallas, and Michael Loyd, of Corpus Christi, are the sophomores on the team. During Spring 2018, Kohrs went 7-12 in singles and recorded his first WAC win against Chicago State’s Cody Wurzelbacher.

Kohrs went 5-8 in doubles while being partnered with Loyd and Sarradin. Together, Kohrs and Serradin picked up a 6-4 WAC tournament victory against Arshak Ghazaryan and Monroy of Seattle University.

Loyd had a season record of 1-5 in doubles alongside teammate Kohrs. They obtained their first win of the season against Mohamed Abdel-Aziz and Jared Aiman of Rice University.

Newcomers in the program include graduate student Jake Davidson, of Portland; and freshmen Samuel de Felipe Garcia, of Oviendo, Spain; George Hutchings, of Lancashire, England; and Te Kani Williams, of Auckland, New Zealand.

The women’s team also had a successful season, with Head Coach Sonia Hahn being named the WAC’s Coach of the Year.

Vaqueras Dominique Esparza, Doris Aleksovska, Dominique Ibarra, Anastasia Belyaeva and Lasya Patnaik also received All-WAC awards.

Esparza and Aleksovska received All-WAC Second Team doubles honors. Ibarra and Belyaeva were awarded All-WAC First Team in singles. Patnaik earned All-WAC Second Team singles honors and Belyaeva and Patnaik earned All-WAC First Team honors.

In Spring 2018, the Vaqueras won their first regular season WAC Championship by defeating New Mexico State 5-2. After accomplishing such an achievement, the team went on to play at the WAC Tournament.

The Vaqueras defeated Grand Canyon University of Phoenix, Ariz., 4-3, and advanced to the championship match of the tournament.

UTRGV then lost 4-0 to the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the championship match.

This season, the Vaqueras are aiming to make another appearance at the WAC Tournament Championships.

The team can accomplish it with the experience of returning seniors Marine Darzyan, Ibarra, Michelle Walker and redshirt senior Aleksovska.

Coach Hahn said the essential key to the team’s success is building a strong bond.

“Team chemistry, it’s a really interesting team because I’ve got older ones, younger ones and then one sophomore,” Hahn said. “… So, I don’t have a lot of depth in the middle, but it’ll be interesting to see how they jell because the ages are so vastly different.

“They all want to win, they all want to work hard, they all want to do well together, so I think that common goal is gonna bring them together.”

Darzyan went 7-14 in singles and 11-10 in doubles. In the WAC tournament, she defeated Martina Lo Pumo of Grand Canyon University 6-4, 7-6. She partnered with Ibarra in doubles to defeat Melinda Johnson and Yana Grechkina, 6-2, of the University of Missouri-Kansas City at the WAC tournament.

In singles, Ibarra finished with a 15-4 record and an 11-10 record in doubles. Her biggest accomplishment was going 5-0 in WAC play. Ibarra teamed with Darzyan to play doubles and defeated UMKC’s Johnson and Grechkina, 6-2, at the WAC tournament.

This is the first season that Walker plays for the UTRGV program. From 2015-2017, she played at Tyler Junior College, where she was named XIV All-Academic Team as a sophomore and NJCAA Player of the Week as a freshman.

Rounding out the list of seniors is  Aleksovska, who had a stellar record, going 10-0 in singles last spring. She defeated Valentina Mokrova of Grand Canyon 6-4, 6-2 at the WAC Tournament.

Aleksovska went 12-5 in doubles alongside partner Esparza. They earned All-WAC First Team honors.

Alicia Thal is the only sophomore on the team. Thal did not compete in any matches during the spring, but went 1-4 in singles and 2-2 in doubles last fall.

The program welcomes four freshmen: Ana Platista, of Belgrade, Serbia; Sandra Putz, of Munich, Germany; Katarina Sarasoga, of Gothenburg, Sweden; and Nethmi Waduge, of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The men and women opened the season last weekend at the Islander Open, hosted by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.