Tennis teams serve notice with wins

The men's tennis team won their dual-meet opener against the Princeton Tigers 7-0. With the win, the No. 35 Jackets are 7-1 in season openers under Head Coach Kenny Thorne.

"Princeton was a tough first match to start with," Thorne said. "Our guys came out and were excited to play. We didn't play great doubles, but we won the doubles point. One of the keys that we've been talking about was winning when you aren't playing well. I think we are going to switch the doubles teams, to try and get three teams that gel. We have a young team. The freshmen really stepped up and played well mentally. I was pleased with the team's performance, but we have a long way to go because the ACC is one of the toughest conferences in the nation this year."

No. 25 Jose Luis Muguruza, the Jackets' sophomore star, tamed the Tigers Darius Craton by winning in straight sets (6-4, 6-4). The sophomore is now 11-4 in singles action on the year after going 9-6 as a freshman.

"He's going to have guys start to shoot at him now that he's getting his ranking up," Thorne said. "He was the underdog all of last year, and now he's had a few good wins as was can be expected. He's been more consistent this year, but he has a long way to go because it's still very early."

Sophomore Zachary Rath defeated Ashwat Sarohia in the closest contest of the event. Rath won in three sets (4-6, 6-3, 11-9), just squeaking by for the win. The sophomore teamed up with Scott Blackmon to chalk up a win in doubles competition as well.

"[Rath's] our team captain," Thorne said. "He didn't play well, but he stayed in there mentally. He won on a bad day, and that's something I like more than someone going out there and playing great tennis and winning. Anybody can win when everything is going good, but he was a bit off and fought through it. That was the match that I probably enjoyed the most out of the whole team match."

Despite their youth the Jackets are finding players to pick up the slack and play like the veterans. Freshman David North went 2-0 on the day after defeating Sratha Saengsuwarn in straight sets. He also teamed up with junior Marko Rajevac to get one of the victories that the Jackets needed for the doubles point.

"We need to make sure that we get good doubles play," Thorne said. "We've got a deep team, but we can only play six during the dual matches, and we need to get some other guys that can play throughout the year into the lineup. We don't take any match for granted. Playing two matches in one day is good. We need as many matches as we can get to develop the guys."

The team will be hosting Wofford in the morning and Georgia Southern in the afternoon at the Bill Moore Tennis Center on Sunday.