ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 19 UCF men's tennis team earned its fourth straight victory on Tuesday afternoon as they defeated South Alabama, a team that was receiving votes in the most recent team rankings, by a score of 6-1.
The doubles point was extremely tight as all courts exchanged leads at some point throughout the match. UCF gained the early edge in the segment with Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi and Bogdan Pavel edging Julien Evrard and Sebastien Collard 6-4 on court two. The Knight's tandem has won four straight matches with today's win. South Alabama evened the session with a 6-4 win of their own on court one as No. 52 Clement Marzol and Loic Cloes beat Gabriel Decamps and Trey Hilderbrand. The doubles point went to the Jaguars after they picked up a 7-6 (7-5) win over Kento Yamada and Mikhail Sokolovskiy on court three.
After dropping the doubles point, UCF solidified their new record for consecutive dual match points earned at 21 after sweeping three straight opponents by a count of 7-0. The previous record they beat was from their last full season where the Knights strung together 19 straight dual match points.
Singles was a different story from doubles as the Black and Gold came out of the gates fast, grabbing quick first set victories across all courts.
No. 52 Grassi Mazzuchi was the first to earn a singles victory on the day, coasting to a 6-2, 6-1 win on court four over Delcour to even the match at 1-1.
Three Knights followed suit, all winning their matches within two minutes of each other. Sokolovskiy earned a 6-1, 6-2 win on court six, besting Martin Bugaj 6-1, 6-2. Sokolovskiy moves into a tie for fourth place on UCF's career singles wins list with 66 as he ties Augusto Sanabria, who earned 66 victories from 1999-2003. Sokolovskiy has won seven straight matches and advances to 7-1 on the campaign.
No. 16 Decamps finished roughly 30 seconds after Sokolovskiy, triumphing over Evrard 6-3, 6-1 at the top singles spot. Decamps is riding a five-match winning streak and moves to 7-1 this season.
Hilderbrand sealed the match with his clinching win on court three as he topped Loic Cloes 6-0, 6-2. Hilderbrand has won four consecutive singles matches and moves to 4-1 at the No. 3 singles spot and 6-2 overall.
Play continued after the match was decided. Yamada moved to 5-0 on the year as he defeated Collard on court five by a count of 6-1, 7-6 (7-4). Last to finish was court two where Alan Rubio who edged Marzol in a third set super tiebreaker 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 to stay perfect at the number two singles spot this season.
UCF has won their last four meetings with the Jaguars. South Alabama has earned exactly one point in each of those four matches.
UP NEXT
The Knights will resume their slate of in-state foes as they'll visit FAU in Boca Raton on Saturday at noon.
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