ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 19 UCF men's tennis team cruised to a 6-1 victory over long-time rival South Florida as the Knights earned their first win of the season in dominating fashion.
"Singles was really good overall," said Director of Tennis John Roddick. "We turned around two out of three first sets that we lost which is really good and then had three guys who followed the gameplan to a T. We've struggled sometimes trusting the gameplan, so that was nice to see. All in all, a pretty good effort."
The doubles point was intense and was a back-and-forth affair throughout. The Bulls struck first, coming back from down 3-1 to take court three. Sergio Gomez and Manuel Goncalves pulled off the 6-3 come from behind effort over Mikhail Sokolovskiy and Alan Rubio. Just seconds later, Bogdan Pavel and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi collected a 6-4 victory on court two over Niels Van Noord and Jakub Wojcik to even the doubles segment. The battle for the match's first point came down to a tiebreaker on court one, where Gabriel Decamps and Trey Hilderbrand edged No. 38 Chase Ferguson and Pierre Luquet by a count of 7-6 (7-4).
The Knights picked up two quick singles points as they kept the momentum rolling from doubles. Hilderbrand was first to clinch a point as he bested Ivan Yatsuk 6-2, 6-3. No. 52 Grassi Mazzuchi followed suit shortly after on court two, defeating Wojcik 6-3, 6-3.
Things tightened up a bit after UCF secured their first two singles courts as three courts were entering third sets. After dropping his first set on court one, No. 16 Decamps was able to make quick work of Ferguson in the next two frames, leading to a marvelous 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory to clinch the match.
Play continued after the Black and Gold's victory was secured. Rubio was the next to tally a singles win, pulling out a close 7-5, 6-4 victory over Luquet on court four. Sokolovskiy grabbed the sixth and final point for the Knights on the afternoon, beating Goncalves 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
The final court of the afternoon went the way of South Florida, as Gomez Montesa edged pavel 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
UCF's win contributed three points to the total War on I-4 count between the two schools. The Knights currently lead the rivalry series by a score of 9-3. The Black and Gold will have another chance to gather three additional points when they travel to Tampa to face the Bulls on Apr. 3.
UP NEXT
UCF will head south for a tilt with Miami on Feb. 7 at 1 p.m. The last time these two sides met was on College MatchDay in 2019 where the Knights swept the Hurricanes 4-0. The Black and Gold will be looking to pick up their third consecutive victory over Miami when they meet next weekend.
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