ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 9 UCF men's tennis team won their eighth straight match as they earned a 4-0 sweep of UNF on Sunday evening.
"We did a nice job on getting through doubles today," said Director of Tennis John Roddick. "In singles we came out, played well and took care of business. We have a quick turn around so its nice to get out of here with a 4-0 win as we start preparing for Wichita State who is having a really good season."
Heavy rain came through the area just before match time, delaying the match. With rain expected to remain in the forecast the rest of the evening, the match was pushed indoors to the Adidas Performance Center at the USTA National Campus and began after a delay that totaled three hours and 20 minutes.
Once the match did get rolling, the Knights took control of two doubles courts and never let them out of their grasp. Courts one and three nearly finished at the same time, as both played their final point simultaneously. Mikhail Sokolovskiy and Kento Yamada finished first on court three as they topped Matt Carroll and Nilo Duarte 6-3. The same score occurred at the top spot in the lineup where No. 29 Bogdan Pavel and Trey Hilderbrand moved to 6-0 as a duo this season, besting Jorge Nunez and Federico Nani. Court two went unfinished as Rodrigo Crespo and Dominik Barton were narrowly leading Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi and Gabriel Decamps.
Singles play saw the Black and Gold collect five of six first frames.
Pavel was the first to make his way onto the scoreboard, cruising to a quick 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jonas Hartenstein on court six.
Following Pavel was Alan Rubio, who earned a victory at the No. 1 doubles spot, earning his second win over a ranked opponent this season. He came from down 4-5 in the first frame to eventually defeat No. 106 Barton 7-5, 6-2.
A handful of Knights were close to completing their match and earning the final point of the evening for UCF, but it was Yamada who was the first to finish as he beat Patrick Kotan on court three 6-1, 6-4. Yamada has only lost one match as a Knight and is now 14-1 this season.
The three unfinished matches saw UCF in the driver's seat. No. 124 Grassi Mazzuchi was leading Duarte 4-3 in the third set on court two while Hilderbrand had a 4-1 edge in his final frame on court four against Crespo. Sokolovskiy was moments away from picking up a straight set win on court five where he led Nunez 6-3, 5-2.
The match concluded an in-season home-and-home between the two programs in 2021. The Knights payed the Ospreys a visit in February, picking up a 7-0 sweep in a match that was also pushed back because of weather.
The victory ties the mark for most wins in a campaign during the Roddick era at UCF. The Black and Gold haven't had a season with more than 16 wins since 2003 when they went 20-4 and were crowned champions of the ASUN, earning the first conference title in program history. They have a chance to eclipse the 20 win mark this season with three matches left in the regular season plus the conference postseason tournament.
UP NEXT
The Knights will be right back in action tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. as they host No. 29 Wichita State.
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