ITA Kickoff Weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina, featured a tough match for Tennessee, which fell to Texas A&M 4-1.

The No. 11 Aggies set the tone in the doubles match. After losing the opening frame, Texas A&M rallied to win the next two to take the point over Tennessee (2-3).

Theo Papamalamis and Togan Tokac fell to Tennessee’s Dragos Cazacu and Piotr Siekanowicz, 6-3. This was a match in which the pair of Vols showed great resilience, as it was back and forth early until Cazacu and Siekanowicz pulled away at the end to win by a break.

In the third and final doubles match, Jose Garcia and Boruch Skierkier dropped a heartbreaker to Tiago Pires and Markus Molder 6-7 (8-10). The tiebreaker was neck-and-neck the whole way as the Aggies notched two straight to win the doubles point.

Alejandro Moreno, whom head coach Chris Woodruff refers to as his No. 1, dropped both of his matches. In singles, Texas A&M’s Papamalamis won in straight sets, 7-6 (8-6) and 6-2.

Jan Kobierski got the Vols on the board in singles with a victory over Pires that went three sets, scored at 6-3, 2-6 and 6-4. Kobierski only needed one break in that third set to finish off a long match.

At 1-1, the Aggies rattled off two straight singles victories with Alex Frusina, taking down Cazacu in another tight loss for Tennessee: 6-4, 4-6 and 3-5. After winning the first set comfortably, Cazacu dropped the final two sets both by a break. In the other match, it was a similar fate for Garcia, who also won the first set and then lost the next two. Texas A&M’s Kholo Montsi solidified the comeback, winning 4-6, 6-3 and 6-3.

Singles match No. 5 between Ethan Muza and Tokac went unfinished in the first set after Tokac jumped out to a 3-0 lead. Siekanowicz and Molder never got underway with the Aggies already having won the match.

Tennessee will be back in action against NC State on Saturday, Jan. 24.