DALLAS – The No. 26 UCF men's tennis team started their three-day, three-match road trip off on the right foot on Friday afternoon as they blanked No. 48 SMU by a count of 4-0.
"We played a good match today," said Director of Tennis John Roddick. "Our doubles was better and we were very consistent in singles. SMU competed really well and we were able to close matches out."
Doubles saw the Mustangs strike first as Huntley Allen and Julian Steinhausen edged Mikhail Sokolovskiy and Kento Yamada 6-4 on court three. The Knights responded with a 6-4 win of their own on court two as Bogdan Pavel and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi bested Caleb Chakravarthi and Liam Krall to even the doubles segment. No. 21 Gabriel Decamps and Trey Hilderbrand prevailed on court two, beating No. 63 Juan Jose Bianchi and Tomas Vaise 7-6 (7-2) to secure the first point of the match.
The Black and Gold carried the momentum of the doubles victory into singles as they took four of six possible first frames.
Sokolovskiy was the first to finish his match as he won his 11th straight singles match, topping Jordi Redelijk 6-1, 6-4 on court six. Sokolovskiy hasn't lost a match since UCF's first tilt of the season against then-No. 11 Florida. He is a perfect 10-0 at the No. 6 singles spot.
No. 4 Decamps was the next Knight to extend his winning streak as he secured a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Chakravarthi at the top singles spot. Decamps advances to 12-1 on the dual match season and has been victorious in 10 straight matches.
The Black and Gold clinched the match as Yamada continued his perfect start to the campaign, moving to 10-0 with a 6-3, 6-3 win on court four over Jan-Simon Vrbsky. Yamada started the season at the No. 5 singles spot in the lineup and went 6-0 there. He has recorded four straight victories now since moving to the fourth spot in singles.
Three singles courts went unfinished at the time of the clincher. Alan Rubio had dropped a tough first set to Krall on court two and was fighting back in the second set 4-6, 5-5. Grassi Mazzuchi had just begun his third set and was trailing Clarke Wilson 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 on court three. Hilderbrand was also in a third set and was down 6-4, 4-6, 2-0 at the time the match concluded.
The win over the Mustangs moves the Knights to 2-0 in conference play. UCF is back to where they left off in 2020 when the season was cut short as they sit with a 10-3 record.
UP NEXT
The Knights have less than 24 hours until their next match as they will travel north to play Oklahoma at 1 p.m. ET.
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