Men's Tennis . October 1, 2020

Gamecock Fall SEC Scramble Set for This Weekend

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina men’s tennis opens its fall season this weekend, hosting the three-day Gamecock Fall SEC Scramble at Carolina Tennis Center beginning Fri., Oct. 2. The facility will be closed to the public, but fans can watch live video streams of each court or follow live scoring at GamecocksOnline.com.

South Carolina welcomes SEC rivals Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee to Columbia for the round robin event that will culminate Sunday with individual singles and doubles champions. Each session will feature two teams playing four doubles and eight singles matches, beginning with the Gamecocks and the Vols matching up at 9:30 a.m. Friday and the Wildcats and Bulldogs playing at 1:30 p.m. Saturday’s 9:30 a.m. match will feature South Carolina and Kentucky with Georgia and Tennessee playing at 1:30 p.m. Sunday matches will be at 9:30 a.m. (Kentucky-Tennessee) and 10:30 a.m. (South Carolina-Georgia) as the three visiting teams travel home later that afternoon.

“Normally we’re playing individual events in the fall, and because of our region, we rarely see SEC teams,” South Carolina head coach Josh Goffi said. :”It’s an amazing opportunity for all of us, not only for our team but every team we’re playing as well. The format we’re playing is round robin. We’ll be lining up singles and doubles just like we would in the spring. [That’s] going to really give us a great idea of where our guys are in their progression. We have our own individual goals that we’re going to hold throughout this weekend. It’s not about the win; it’s about our progression. We also want to see how that’s going to match up and what kind of holes these great teams can poke into our fundamentals. From that, we can only get better from there.”

Gamecock Notables
•   While there are no preseason fall rankings this season, the Gamecocks finished the 2019-20 campaign ranked No. 18 in the nation as a team.
•   The Gamecocks return seven letterwinners from last season’s team and signed three freshmen to join this year’s squad
•   Juniors Raphael Lambling and Daniel Rodrigues closed out their second season ranked No. 45 and 46, respectively, in singles and combined to form the nation’s No. 30 doubles team. Senior Thomas Brown and junior Beau Pelletier ended last season ranked No. 80 in doubles.
•   Two of the Gamecocks’ freshmen will be in action this weekend as Carter Morgan and Toby Samuel will take the court for the first time in their college careers.

Tournament Field Notables
•   Georgia and Tennessee finished last season ranked Nos. 11 and 12, respectively, while Kentucky closed out 2019-20 ranked No. 33 in the nation.
•   A pair of Georgia juniors were ranked in the top 12 at the end of last season – No. 11 Philip Henning and No. 12 Trent Bryde. The 2019-20 Bulldogs also featured the No. 15 doubles team in the country in Bryde and Tyler Zink and the No. 26 tandem of Henning and Blake Croyder.
•   Tennessee senior Adam Walton is back after a junior season that saw him ranked No. 31 in the country. In doubles Andrew Rogers and Giles Hussey finished last year ranked No. 50.