After a tight defeat against Florida’s No. 1, Vanderbilt fell to another opponent in the top ten in South Carolina on Sunday.
In an unusual one-sided confrontation, the Vanderbilt Commodores dropped 6-1 to South Carolina’s No. 10 Gamecocks at home on Sunday. This match comes shortly after a close fight with the No. 1 Florida Gators on Friday, which the Commodores barely lost 4-3. This match contrasts sharply with Sunday’s, in which everything seemed to go the South Carolina way.
First, the Commodores lost the doubles point with two losses on lines one and two in doubles games. On line one, veterans George Harwell and Max Freeman fell 6-2 to Daniel Rodrigues and Connor Thomson, of South Carolina. Shortly thereafter, Vanderbilt’s Marcus Ferreira and Adam Sraberg lost 6-3 to Toby Samuel and Jake Beasley of Gamecocks. Freshmen Jeremie Casabon and Connor Robb-Wilcox were winning 4-3 in a tight set when the match was abandoned.
South Carolina maintained its momentum after the doubles point – Gamecocks quickly took the lead in almost all singles matches. Ferreira, on line two, lost the first singles match of the game against Thomson in two sets, 6-4, 6-2. He seemed to be recovering after recovering from 5-2 to 5-4 in the first set, but after he closed the first set, the second set was all Thomson.
Jeremie Casabon then lost two sets 6-2 and 6-1 to Raphael Lambling of South Carolina on row three. Despite the long rallies and the competitive game, Lambling seemed to have the advantage over Casabon throughout the game. Casabon’s tough defeat comes shortly after the biggest victory of his career against the eighth player at the University of Florida nationally, Andy Andrade.
Harwell, in court one, lost again to Rodrigues in the individual matches 6-2, 6-3. He played with tenacity, extending rallies that could easily have been lost, but was unable to close the deficit between them in either set. Still, Harwell’s performance is more impressive in the context, considering that Rodrigues is the country’s highest ranked high school player in the ITA individual men’s ranking on March 30.
Junior Macsen Sisam had a similar experience, losing 6-3 and 6-4 to Samuel of the Gamecocks.
Freeman seemed to be changing things up a bit for the Commodores after a dominant first set, which he won 6-2. However, USC’s Beasley recovered from a deficit in the second set to force a tiebreaker, which he won. As the game had already been won for South Carolina, Freeman and Beasley played another tie to decide the third set, and Beasley won 9-7, giving the USC its sixth point of the day.
On Sunday’s lonely bright spot, sophomore Joubert Klopper won his singles match on line six in a three-set game, 6-3, 5-7, 1-0. His third set was also decided by a tiebreaker, since it was after the decision point as well. After losing the second set, there was concern that his game would end in a similar way to Freeman’s, but his consistent strikes on the ground and serves guaranteed a tie in the third set.
Vanderbilt has only two games left in the regular season, which will be against Mississippi and Ole Miss at home next weekend. The Commodores hope to ease the pain of two tough defeats next weekend in their final games of the regular season and later in the SEC tournament.