Texas A&M’s Jordi Arconada and Juan Carlos Aguilar earned this week’s SEC Men’s Tennis honors, announced Wednesday afternoon by the league office. Arconada was named the Co-SEC Player of the Week alongside Ryo Matsumura of Kentucky while Aguilar captured his third SEC Freshman of the Week accolade.
Arconada and Aguilar earned their second top-10 doubles win of the season last weekend, defeating No. 5 Alfredo Perez and Johannes Ingildsen of Florida, and improved to 8-1 in SEC doubles action including a league best 6-1 mark on court one. With the 2-0 weekend, the Maroon & White duo improved to No. 8 in this week’s ITA doubles rankings, their second top-10 ranking of the season.
Arconada earned the highest ranked singles win of his career defeating No. 9 Perez of Florida to help the Aggies improve to 9-0 in SEC play. The win was the right-handers team-best 10th over a ranked opponent this year and improved his league leading win total on court three to eight. Arconada stormed back in the second set against Yancy Dennis of South Carolina to clinch the win against the Gamecocks on Sunday, the senior trailed 4-1 and won six of the final seven games to win 6-3. 7-5. Over the past two seasons, Arconada has gone a league-best 19-1 in SEC matches. The pair of singles wins over the weekend improved his career total to 60 in dual matches, moving into 20th place on A&M’s all-time list.
Aguilar improved to 3-0 against ranked foes this year after defeating No. 94 Duarte Vale of Florida, the win clinched the top-10 match up against the Gators and improved the Aggies to 9-0 in the SEC. The freshman won his fifth straight singles match, topping Harrison O’Keefe of South Carolina on Sunday. The La Paz, Bolivia native earned the first singles point to even the match at one-all against the Gamecocks. The win improved Aguilar to 17-3 in dual matches and 8-1 in SEC play. Aguilar has won 10 of his last 11 matches, dropping only one set and a 10-point tiebreaker in the streak.
Texas A&M closes out the regular season with home matches against No. 7 Mississippi State and Auburn next weekend. The Aggies and Bulldogs will face off at 6 p.m. at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center on Friday, the winner will clinch at least a share of the 2018 SEC Championship.
