Fall Season in Review: Men’s Tennis

The 2024 fall season offered valuable, tough training for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s (UTRGV) men’s tennis team, which is a deceptively young but endlessly promising squad.

Though six of the 10 student-athletes on the roster are returners, only two had been through a fall season at UTRGV. There are no seniors on the team and eight are sophomores or younger.

Their first tournament was a learning experience, and even if it wasn’t perfect, the Vaqueros learned to fight through adversity and saw all four freshmen earn their first collegiate wins by the end of the weekend. Their progress was notable from week to week as the season played out and the student-athletes gained a lot from the long, hot days at the Orville Cox Tennis Center.

“We had a good fall season. The guys embraced the training in 95+ degree weather and competing against the best teams in Texas at our fall tournaments,” head coach Nathan Robinson said. “The biggest place I saw growth from this group was mentally. We are a physically strong and gifted group, so seeing them really start to grow with the mentality was awesome to see. Mental growth is a funny thing because so much is up to the individual to make the decision. This group really made that decision and you could feel it in practice with the intensity, the focus, and the dialogue of what the expectations are.”

Redshirt junior Sam Whitehead, the team captain, made his return to competition after an injury sidelined him a few matches into the 2024 spring season. He went 3-1 in singles at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Texas Regional to punch his ticket to the qualifying draw and was selected to represent UTRGV at the first-ever Southland Conference (SLC) Individual Fall Championships, going 1-1 in doubles with sophomore Ivo Isqueiro. Robinson said watching Whitehead “find his form again” was one of the standout moments of the fall season.

Whitehead’s leadership helped Robinson quickly transition four freshmen to the lineup. Those freshmen contributed some big moments, too, including Eduardo Menezes teaming up with sophomore Santiago Serrano to earn a doubles win over a Texas duo. Loic Young Kriegel won the team tournament. Seeing the young student-athletes compete against and alongside the veterans and fit in seamlessly gives the squad high hopes for the spring.

“Eduardo, Loic, Isaac Smyth and Francisco Gamez are a gritty freshman group who came in with a ton of confidence, physically ready, and fired up to get started. They expect to be instrumental in our success, not waiting on the sidelines. Their hard work has done a great job of creating internal competition,” Robinson said.

The start of the spring season is around the corner and the Vaqueros are going in confident after a beneficial fall run.

“This group has me very excited about the upcoming season,” Robinson said. “They are young, with no actual seniors, but have enough experience to never be overwhelmed with the upcoming schedule. Their preparations this fall will put us in the best position going into the spring season than we have been in since I’ve been here. I really believe this growth has come from full buy-in to what our program is trying to accomplish and believing that our training will be what separates us from our competition.”