By Dylan Vazzano, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech tennis team has its sight set on a jam-packed weekend at home, as the Golden Eagles get ready for back-to-back affairs at Tech Tennis Courts against two schools from the state of Alabama. TTU is set to entertain Jacksonville State on Saturday before the Golden Eagles host UAB on Sunday. Both matches will begin at 1 p.m. CT.
Admission at Tech Tennis Courts is free of charge.
A look at Tennessee Tech
The Golden Eagles (5-5, 2-0 OVC) enter the pair of tilts surging behind five straight wins, including nods over Belmont and Eastern Illinois in the club's first two OVC contests. Tech is coming off a 7-0 win at EIU on Mar. 27 in a match that saw the purple and gold not drop a set throughout singles play.
Evzen Holis, who carded a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Leighton Brandon in the No. 2 spot, also rolled out a 6-2 win with Jun Sasagawa in the No. 1 doubles clash that pushed Holis to his second OVC Male Tennis Player of the Week honor this season.
Overall, the 6-foot-2 freshman's four singles triumphs are tied for third on the team. Elias Grubert and Andre Rodeia have paced the purple and gold with five solo wins apiece, while Carlos Vicente has secured four nods this spring, all out of the No. 1 spot.
Holis and Sasagawa lead the Golden Eagles during doubles action with a 5-4 record, highlighted by a 4-3 mark out of the top tandem slot.
The Golden Eagles won their only home match of the spring thanks to a 4-3 victory over Radford on Mar. 11. Tech is 40-2 in the last 42 matches played in Cookeville.
A look at Jacksonville State
A battle of the league's last two unbeatens during conference play, JSU (8-4, 2-0 OVC) comes to Cookeville with 7-0 victories over both Eastern Illinois and Austin Peay in its back pocket. The Gamecocks have dropped only one singles clash during the two OVC affairs.
Joaquin Vallejo has proven to be the club's top singles competitor with a team-best 9-2 solo record, with all 11 matches coming out of the No. 1 position in the JSU lineup. Guillermo Agost holds an 8-4 singles ledger this spring, which includes a 6-4 record out of the No. 2 slot. The Logrono, Spain native has also won his only matchup in both the No. 1 and No. 3 spots in the lineup.
Vallejo and Maj Tomac have teamed up for a JSU-best 9-2 doubles record, all out of the No. 3 position, while Aljaz Kaplja and Thomas Norwood have gone 7-2 out of the No. 1 slot.
A look at UAB
The Blazers (5-8, 0-2 Conference USA) make their way to the Upper Cumberland having dropped three of the last four contests, but did manage a 4-1 win over Jacksonville State during the tough stretch.
Michal Lusovsky holds the best singles record with an 8-4 mark, highlighted by a 7-3 ledger out of the No. 2 spot in the lineup. Vojtech Podzemny and Roman Postolka both have six wins each, with Postolka claiming five of his six victories out of the top position in the UAB order.
Postolka and Lusovsky are the club's best doubles duo with a 7-3 record out of the No. 1 position.
Inside the Series
Tennessee Tech leads the all-time series, 17-5, over Jacksonville State and has won eight straight and 13 of the last 14 in the set. The two program's last meeting was for all the marbles in the 2019 OVC Tournament, a 4-2 Golden Eagle triumph in Nashville.
Tech has only locked up with UAB twice in the all-time set, and the Blazers have claimed both affairs with a 4-3 win on Mar. 9, 2019 and a 9-0 victory on Mar. 17, 1985.
Photo by Thomas Corhern
