ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) – The No. 33 UCF men’s tennis team defeated the South Alabama Jaguars by a score of 4-1 on Monday afternoon. It took two venues and a 30-minute rain delay, but in the end the Knights picked up their ninth win.
“It was nice to get the doubles point and get three wins in singles out of four to finish,” said Director of Tennis John Roddick, “We still had two good matches going on, so all in all, we’ll take those days.”
Doubles play began with the Knights taking leads on all three courts. Holding their lead and never looking back, Mikhail Sokolovskiy and Manoel Alencar defeated Max Laparaille and Louis Delcour by a score of 6-3 on court three. Court one would finish things off, as Bogdan Pavel and Trey Hilderbrand bested the No. 19 pair in the nation consisting of Loic Cloes and Clement Marzol by a count of 7-5. Court two remained unfinished as Gabriel Decamps and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi barely trailed 5-6 to Sacha Modica and Sam Serrano.
Singles play began at the UCF Collegiate Center at the USTA National Campus with Sokolovskiy defeating Delcour on court six by a score of 6-4, 6-2.
Moments after Sokolovskiy finished, Decamps picked up a win on court one. He topped Modica 6-1, 6-3 for his fifth win of the season.
Play continued for a bit after Decamps had clinched. On a day that was already chilly and windy, light ran began to fall. The drizzle never turned into heavy rain, but it was just enough precipitation to make the courts too slick to play. Coaches from both sides agreed to wait and see if the situation got any better. It did not, thus the match was moved to an indoor set of courts on the USTA National Campus.
After a brief warm-up period, the match resumed with the Knights up 3-0 and four singles matches in progress. Soon after resumption, South Alabama got their lone point as Cloes defeated Pavel in three sets, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1.
It was a race between Grassi Mazzuchi and Hilderbrand to see who would get the clincher. Hilderbrand would defeat Serrano 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on court four to put the Knights back in the win column. Grassi Mazzuchi had gone into a tiebreaker against Laparaille, where the match went unfinished at 6-4, 6-6 (3-2).
The other match to go unfinished was court two, where No. 122 Alan Rubio faced Marzol. Rubio dropped a tight first set but took the second one before the match was clinched. The score will remain at 6-7 (6-8), 6-3.
UP NEXT
UCF will face their seventh ranked opponent in their last eight matches as Oklahoma State pays a visit to the UCF Collegiate Tennis Center at the USTA National Campus. Both teams will receive new numbers next to their names with Tuesday’s release of the Oracle/ITA rankings.
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