Miami men’s tennis continues to struggle with a rough weekend, growing its losing streak to four straight. Both losses on the road highlight the main struggle for the men, who are now 1-6 when traveling for matches.
The first of which was on Thursday, when the Hurricanes traveled to Clemson to take on the Tigers and lost 4-0. Clemson took control quickly and secured the doubles points. On court three, Wissam Abderrahman and Max Damm took down sophomores Sam Baumgartner and Nacho Serra Sanchez, 6-1. Quickly after, the Hurricanes’ No. 64 ranked Vladislav Melnic and senior Adrien Burdet fell on the top court, 6-3, to Clemson’s Max Smith and Noa Vukadin.
Singles didn’t fare much better for the ‘Canes and continued the Tigers’ dominance on the day. Steward Aronson took down Baumgartner 6-4, 6-0. No. 119-ranked Ryuhei Azuma took down sophomore Antonio Prat 6-3, 6-1. To end the match, Marko Mesarovic took down Melnic 6-4, 6-2, completing the Tigers’ sweep.
On Saturday, Miami started out much better against Georgia Tech. Starting the day, Prat and junior Martin Katz took down the Yellow Jackets’ No. 48 duo of Marcus McDaniel and Keshav Chopra to open the day. Melnic and Burdet grabbed court two, 6-4, and Sanchez and freshman Yannik Rahman, with a win of 7-5, took court three and secured the doubles point for Miami.
As the match transitioned into singles, Miami again struggled to keep up. Georgia Tech’s Rohan Sachdev took down Sanchez 6-4, 6-2. Baumgartner fell to GT’s Krish Arora, 6-2, 6-4, to take the lead. Prat, facing No. 16 ranked Andres Martin, fought hard to keep Miami in the match but fell 6-3, 7-5 to put the ‘Canes down, 3-1. Richard Biagiotti put the nail in the coffin, taking down Burdet on court four, 6-1, 7-5, sending Miami home with a 4-1 loss.
Miami now falls to 10-10 on the season and 2-7 against its ACC rivals. The Hurricanes have a chance to get things turned around to end the season with three straight matches at home, where they are 8-4. They will face a gauntlet of ITA-ranked opponents, including sixth-ranked Wake Forest, No. 15-ranked Florida State and No.16-ranked NC State. This test will start next Friday, April 5 with North Carolina State.