UT men's tennis team to play for NCAA doubles championship

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Tennessee’s doubles team of Davey Sandgren and John-Patrick Smith has been getting off to some fast starts of late, so when the rain interrupted their match two games into the second set Sunday it played into their hands.

The Vols were up a set and a break at 2-0 when the rain interrupted play for nearly two hours.

When they came back out, the Vols got off to another great start, breaking immediately before going on to a 6-4, 6-2 win over the Auburn pair of Tim Puetz and Alevey Tsyrenov in the doubles semifinals of the NCAA Tennis Tournament at the Mitchell Tennis Center on the campus of Texas A&M.

“I thought we started out really strong, fired up and ready to go,” Sandgren said. “We served well the rest of the first set, only giving up a couple of break points on my serve and we came up really big and played really well on them.”

The Vols then got another break when Puetz pulled a groin muscle on the second point after play resumed and had to take a medical timeout. Puetz was serving at the time and the injury was noticeable in how it affected the Tigers, who went on to lose the game to go down 3-0.

“The rain delay cooled everything off and it was sort of anticlimactic for us I think,” Sandgren said. “He couldn’t move that well and they played differently to compensate his pull.”

The Vols’ duo will play a familiar foe in the final, Dominic Inglot and Michael Shabaz of Virginia. The twosome knocked off the No. 1 seeds from Mississippi in the first round and came from a set down to defeat Clay Donato and Taylor Fogleman of North Carolina, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, on Sunday.

Virginia handed the Vols (32-11) an 8-5 loss in the fall.

“We played them at the UVA indoor,” Smith said. “Here in the hotter environment it should have more affect on the match, especially the serves and returns.”

The Vols broke Tsyrenov to go up 2-1 in the first set. A backhand error at the net by Puetz was the final point that gave the Vols the early momentum.

Smith had no trouble in holding his serve winning both after the break with ease, the second at love.

The Auburn duo reached deuce twice against Sandgren, but a couple of service winners and an overhead by Smith kept Puetz and Tsyrenov from getting back into the match.

“The match yesterday (a three-setter against Wake Forest) was really intense so it’s nice not to go through that kind of anguish the whole match,” Sandgren said. “We got fortunate with a couple of breaks (early in each set).”

Richard Croome is a freelance contributor.