Tennessee senior Angel Diaz delivered the clinching point for the Big Orange, a powerful ace to polish off a 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-3 win over Stanford’s #74 Aryan Chaudhary at the No. 5 singles spot. With a 5-3 advantage in the third set, serving down 15-30, Diaz showed great composure while securing Tennessee’s first win over a ranked opponent this season.
Tennessee (7-4) took down the Cardinal in the consolation match by way of the doubles point and three singles victories.
The Vols have won the doubles point nine times in their first 11 matches of the season, doing so in dominant fashion Saturday. On court one, UT’s seventh-ranked duo of Pat Harper and Johannus Monday pummeled Arthur Fery and Nishesh Basavareddy of Stanford, 6-1 in just 18 minutes. Monday and Harper did not surrender a point in an early break of the Cardinal duo to go up 2-0 early on.
The doubles point was clinched with a 6-2 win by #34 Emile Hudd and Shunsuke Mitsui over Samir Banerjee/Neel Rajesh on court two. The Tennessee pair went up a break at 4-2 and didn’t look back en route to a win.
The Vols split the first sets of singles with Stanford (6-4). After the Cardinal won singles matches on courts two, six and three, taking a 3-1 lead, the comeback effort began for Tennessee.
The Vols’ first singles point came from #116 Hudd on court four, a 7-6(2), 6-4 win over Stanford’s #2 Nishesh Basavareddy. Hudd held serve on a deuce point to remain up a break at 5-3 in the first set, before taking control of the tiebreak, 7-2.
Tennessee #18 Monday battled to earn a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3 win at No. 1 singles, improving to 5-0 over ranked singles opponents this dual season. The victory also serves as Monday’s second top-70 singles win in the past two days.
DIAZ DELIVERS
Diaz’s court-five clinch marked his fifth clinch as a Vol and his first of the 2023 dual season. Three of his five clinches have come against top-25 opponents—#5 TCU (2022), #24 Mississippi State (2022) and #17 Stanford (2023).
BIG E GETS THE JOB DONE
Emile Hudd’s straight-set win over the nation’s second-ranked player, Nishesh Basavareddy, Saturday marked his second win over an ITA top-five singles opponent this season. The other came in the fall season, a 6-1, 6-4 win over then-fourth-ranked Inaki Montes of Virginia on Oct….
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