Saturday Sweeping: No. 6 Kentucky men's tennis crushes Arkansas
Kentucky men’s tennis is starting to put together inspired performances week in and week out.
The No. 6 Wildcats blanked Arkansas on Saturday afternoon, 7-0. “Blanking” is a nice way of putting it. Kentucky dominated the Razorbacks from start to finish. The ‘Cats have lost only one point in the past two matches. Their complete performance against LSU on Thursday saw the visitors only win one point in the overall match. On Saturday, UK wanted to see if they could somehow improve. That they did.
Kentucky’s sweep of Arkansas moves the ‘Cats to 15-2 (3-1) on the season. That’s three straight wins for the Wildcats after they dropped their first game of conference play to South Carolina. An improvement has been seen in the doubles play, which offered some concerns in earlier matches this season. This week alone, the Wildcats have won both doubles points in their respective matches and it has dictated the pace of the entire match.
The ‘Cats take their momentum on the road this coming week. Homebase won’t be in Lexington, but on the highway in Alabama with Kentucky facing off against Alabama and Auburn over the next seven days.
Onslaught begins
Saturday’s doubles play mirrored that of Thursday afternoon. The No. 1 pairing of Alafia Ayeni and Taha Baadi got the party started with a 6-2 win and then Jaden Weekes and Liam Draxl went to work on court three. The Weekes-Draxl tandem cruised to a 6-3 win. This duo has really impressed in recent matches, and Saturday was no different.
With a 1-0 lead in the match, Kentucky would then go to work during singles. The Wildcats actually won the overall match extremely quickly. Draxl, Baadi, and Joshua Lapadat flew out the gate to three-straight straight-set wins. This perfect trio gave Kentucky a 4-0 lead as the ‘Cats already had the match secured, but played out the remaining singles matches.
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Three more Wildcats cemented victories and it was 7-0 to the good guys before you knew it. Ayeni was the only Wildcat that didn’t win in straight sets. He was forced into a 10-point tiebreaker, which he won after he was tied through two sets. Weekes and Frenchman Charlelie Cosnet both won fairly easily and the perfect day was capped off for Kentucky. Utter domination from start to finish resulted in a 7-0 sweep of the Razorbacks.
In fact, Kentucky lost only ONE set out of 14 played on Saturday. Ponder that just for a second.
Happy ending
It truly is, considering there’s a three-match win streak going into the road trip. As much of a dominant performance as this week proved to be for Kentucky, a confidence boost was seen throughout the week. The ‘Cats can crush their opponents and they should when given the opportunity. We saw this over the last two matches.
The road trip begins with 11-4 (1-2) Auburn on Thursday and then 8-7 (0-2) Alabama on Saturday. A good squad can win on the road and Kentucky hasn’t lost a true road match all season long. Either something gives or the win streak continues. The ‘Cats are hot and they take that fire south this week.
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