Featured photo by Owen Fink/MTSU Athletics
Story by Brett Walker
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MURFREESBORO, Tenn- Middle Tennessee men’s tennis (11-7) defeated Texas Tech (6-6) 4-1 in the battle of the Raiders on Friday night. The win becomes the sixth power conference victory for the Blue Raiders this season.
Prior to its matchup with Texas Tech, MTSU won 13 out of 17 available doubles points this season. The Blue Raiders won the doubles points in nine of their 10 victories. On Friday, the team earned its 11th victory in an uncommon way.
MTSU’s doubles teams came out of the gate unusually sluggish. The duo of Javier Cueto Ramos and Shu Matsuoka were the first to fall, losing to Reed Collier and Jonas Gundacker 6-3. Leo Raquin and Ondrej Horak fought to take a 6-5 lead, but it was all for naught as Marcel Kamrowski and Karim Al-Amin suffered a 7-2 loss in a tiebreaker to Lorenzo Esquici and Olle Wallin.
Following the doubles loss, MTSU head coach Jimmy Borendame huddled up with the team to regroup before singles play.
“Yeah, I kind of joked, I just told them, first of all there were some bad words that came out,” Borendame said. “But I told them that the wrong Raiders showed up in that doubles, and I was hoping the Blue Raiders would come out. Obviously, we got the Red Raiders and the Blue Raiders going at each other, and so, they heard me, they responded, they used the crowd better. And even though we let that doubles point slip, the guys got up for the singles and took it to them (Texas Tech.)”
The Blue Raiders seemed to take Borendame’s brief chat to heart as a rejuvenated team came out to play in singles. Radford University transfer Demis Taramonlis did not take his opponent lightly. Taramonlis briskly defeated Jonas Gundacker 6-0 and 6-1. Taramonlis, who began the season at the No. 6 spot in singles, has recently been promoted to No. 4. The redshirt- senior feels that the MTSU coaching staff recognized areas for improvement in his game and helped to correct them.
“I started a little bit lower in the lineup, that was Coach Jimmy’s decision and Coach Cali,” Taramonlis said. “Sometimes you have to go with them, they know something better than us. I agreed. I showed them that I can play higher in the lineup. They saw some things probably that I improved. We watched a lot of videos from my last matches, and we improved my serve, we improved my footwork, I was in the right position, in the right place where I had to be. I was expecting some shots from the opponent that I wasn’t before. So, we worked together very well and that has benefits on the court.”
Taramonlis wasn’t the only Blue Raider to win big. Horak won 6-0, 6-2, Raquin won 6-4, 6-3 and Marcel Kamrowski won 6-4, 6-2. Not all the Blue Raiders started off hot in singles, however.
Matsuoka lost in doubles 6-3 with his partner Ramos. As singles play started, Matsuoka once again found himself down quickly. After some brief chats with Borendame, Matsuoka began to rally. The sophomore from Tokyo, Japan rattled off six straight games to take the first set and captured the first two games of the second set. After the game, Matsuoka was thankful that the home crowd and his head coach had his back.
“First of all, I would love to thank the crowd today. There were a lot of people that showed up, a lot of people screaming and cheering for me. That helped me a lot when I was down 0-3,” Matsuoka said. “Apparently, I was able to win like eight straight games, because I found a tactic against the opponent. Coach Jimmy was helping me a lot with the tactics, and we found the weakness of the opponent, and I was able to use my weapon to attack his weakness. I think that made me play so much better than I was playing at first, and also, I got a little bit looser, and I think that was the key.”
Even though Matsuoka roared back from a 0-3 deficit to win the first set 6-3 and take a 3-1 lead in set two, he was unable to finish the match. After MTSU clinched the match with Kamrowski’s victory, the two teams elected not to play the rest of the match. While Matsuoka’s winning effort will go unrecognized in the box score, it will certainly not go unnoticed by his head coach.
“Shu, the last two or three weeks, has been really good for him,” Borendame said. “He’s really heard me. He’s welcoming to listen to coaching, and I think that’s the biggest piece. He made some great adjustments, and Shu is an amazing athlete, I still think we are just scratching the surface with what he can do on a tennis court. I’m super proud of him and that turnaround. Really, I think, for me, that match when he won the first set kind of shut all hopes down for Texas Tech.”
Brett Walker is a sportswriter for MTSU Sidelines. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com. Also, follow us on Facebook and Instagram @mtsusidelines, or on X @MTSUSidelines.
