Roll Tide from Men’s Tennis,
What an opening day! Great competition, spirit, crowd support, ball running, college debuts and positive results. Both the Bucs and Bulldogs provided a tremendous challenge for our young team and the guys really stepped up.
Ten-time consecutive Southern Conference champion East Tennessee State arrived in Tuscaloosa with one thing in mind – slay the dragon. The Bucs have a very deep squad with veteran leadership at the top. They know how to win because it’s part of their culture and they’ve been doing it for a long time. I knew it was going to be an immediate test of our team’s will and character, and as the well-known idiom states, the Tide were “thrown into the deep end.”
Doubles was tight and it came down to the wire. Following an opening win on court 3 by freshmen Thibault Cancel and Zhe Zhou, the Bucs fended off several break points on court 1 and turned the tables on Mazen Osama and Spencer Richey by sneaking away with a narrow 7-5 victory. On court 2 another pair of freshmen in Alexey Nesterov and Edson Ortiz needed to break ETSU while they served for the match and then force a tiebreaker. The determination of this newly formed and energetic Tide duo prevailed with a 7-2 TB margin to clinch the important doubles point.
In singles the momentum seemed to flow Bama’s way as we won first sets on four courts – Mazen at 1, Thibault at 2, Spencer at 4 and Edson at 5. The other two courts were tightly contested first frames so things looked promising early on. Tennis, however, and more specifically, momentum in tennis, can change within a blink of an eye. We went up 3-0 after Edson and Spencer chalked up their first wins of 2017 but the. ETSU responded with a pair of points on courts 3 and 6. Both Thibault and Mazen were forced into third sets and the tension was building inside the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Indoor Facility. What did I say about momentum?
Well our French, kick-boxing, guitar-playing and fathead featured freshman Thibault, grabbed momentum by the neck, broke at 4-3 (to make it 5-3) and served out the match with an ace that his opponent called out but was overruled. Point Bama! Roll Tide!
Yowza what a barnburner and certainly a well earned victory. Five freshmen earned the doubles point (as I include new assistant Robbie Weiss in this category) and then one sophomore and two more freshmen clinched the match after singles. A fun afternoon for our newcomers as we were tested early and often as well as treated to an excellent home crowd cheering on the Tide. We also were grateful to have a passionate group of young ball runners that ran their tails off. Special thanks to them and Peter Magnusson for organizing and supervising our Bama Baller group.
After an hour break to recover and refuel, we began to warm-up for round 2 versus Samford. Like ETSU, they were gunning for us. My message to the team was straight forward and clear. There was no way we would take them lightly.
Doubles cranked up the energy as well as a second group of ball runners. This group drove down from Birmingham to practice for the upcoming Davis Cup competition (U.S. vs. Switzerland) to be held at the BJCC February 3-5. Six people per court – 2 at net and 2 at each baseline. Intense! Thanks Jenny Robb for the outstanding coordination and opportunity for your group to be involved with our match.
Once again the newbie duo of Thibault and Zhe were first off dispatching their Bulldog opponents in quick fashion. Alexey and Edson were back on their energy bus and close to solidifying a point for the home team. Mazen and Spencer overturned a pair of late break points against them to even their match, then follow up with a break and ultimately serve out the set to give Bama a 1-0 lead.
Singles saw the Tide pull away early on a few courts with the team taking all six first sets. Never to assume, however, we needed to seize every opportunity that presented itself to us as our bodies had been put through quite the opening day workout. This time we featured three freshmen and three sophomores on court including Langford Hills who was coming off a bout with mono over the holiday break. Thibault captured his fourth win of the day as he was quickly first off. Edson followed suit just one point later with another impressive win. A notable effort considering this was Edson’s fourth match of the day and he was playing better and better with each point as well as bringing the vocal energy until the contest was over. As Robbie put it, “Edson is a bull.” Well El Toro’s efforts made it 3-0. It was then down to the remaining fours guys on court to hammer in the final nail. The Egyptian Lover, Mazen, clinched the doubleheader win for Bama on court 1 and the day was over. Point Bama! Roll Tide!
So a lot of great takeaways and noteworthy experiences for the team and the crowd. We will remember this day throughout the season and recall the physical, mental and emotional energy given in order to get us to the top.
Now we have an interesting trip ahead of us. Lake Nona (Orlando) is the new home for the USTA and they will host the first College Matchday of their young facility existence this Saturday night at 6 p.m. EST. The Crimson Tide will square off outdoors against former Bama coach Adam Steinberg and the Wolverines of Michigan. The match will be streamed live on ESPN3 with a pair of broadcasters and a sideline reporter too. They expect a great crowd at the 100-court monster of a facility and we want to make sure that Alabama fans are there in full force. We will do our best to reverse a 4-3 loss last year and compete, compete, compete. Why? #ThatsBama!
Roll Tide,
George