VIDEO: Jean Love Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After opening the season with a tough 8-1 loss to Young Harris, the Carson-Newman men's tennis team looks to make a turnaround on Tuesday as the Eagles take a trip to Athens, Tenn. to take on Tennessee Wesleyan at 1:30 p.m.
The road trip will serve as C-N's first competition in a week after Saturday's match against Lee was postponed due to rain.
Last Tuesday's season opener saw the Eagles (0-1) struggle out of the gate, not winning a match until the final one of the day at the No. 6 spot as Jesus Bacete-Sanz (Madrid, Spain) picked up an 8-3 victory.
The Eagles came close to winning a doubles match-up at the second-seeded position but Bacete-Sanz and Taylor Barie (Woodstock, Ga.) came up two points short in the 8-6 defeat.
"We've still got some work to do, but we did have some players that even though they did not win, they did play well," head coach Jean Love analyzed. "Just got to clean a few things up and just got to continue to get better because I think we left a few matches out on the court for them.
"We've just got to play better doubles and we can. I don't know why we played so poorly at a couple spots. The No. 2 doubles team was right in the match and we're going to work on some things to hopefully translate into better performance."
The Bulldogs (1-0) came into the season ranked No. 19 in the NAIA preseason coaches' poll. They opened their 2018 campaign in September with an 8-1 win over Christian Brothers University.
TWU closed out 2017 with a 12-5 record going 5-2 in Appalachian Athletic Conference action with a trip to the AAC tournament where the Bulldogs fell to Reinhardt in the finals, 5-4. The team's trip to the NAIA National Championships was cut short by Middle Georgia State College, 6-3. They finished the season at No. 17 in the NAIA rankings, the highest ranking in team history.
First-year head coach Francisco Gallardo now sits at the helm of the Bulldogs squad after playing for them for four years and serving as an assistant coach last season. His team returns nine players from last year's roster including 2017 AAC All-Freshman Team member Bernat Paredes.
The last time the Eagles and Bulldogs faced off was Feb. 24 of last season with the Bulldogs taking a 5-4 victory on the banks of Mossy Creek. C-N lost all three doubles matches to start off the day, giving the Bulldogs a hefty lead heading into singles action. TWU kept the ball rolling as Llardo took the first singles win at the No. 3 spot over Marc Bantel in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5. The Eagles picked up wins from Joao Pedro Oliveria, Rodolfo Schwarz (Brazil), Gabriel Dabdab (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Kevin Mendes (Chattanooga, Tenn.), but those wins were not enough as the Bulldogs snatched two of the six singles matches to garner the victory.
Carson-Newman has not won a match against Tennessee Wesleyan in all of this decade's four meetings. The closest they have come to winning a match was last season.
"This is a good outing for us. We've just got to continue to learn and grow as individuals and singles but also as doubles teams and a team as a whole," Love mentioned. "We've got to get this done."
Tuesday's match between the Eagles and Bulldogs is set to start at 1:30 p.m. in Athens, Tenn. Results and a recap will be available on cneagles.com following the match.
