ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 10/11 UCF men's tennis team earned its 10th straight win as they defeated another ranked conference foe, topping No. 27 Memphis 4-0 at home on Sunday afternoon.
"Today was a better match," said Director of Tennis John Roddick. "We were focused. The doubles point is always tough, but we fought through there at No. 1. In singles, the guys did a lot of what we asked them to do…extending leads and then closing out when we had the opportunity. Even after getting to four points, we were in position on a lot of other courts to have good strong finishes. Very good today."
The doubles point started with UCF earning a solid 6-2 victory on court two as Gabriel Decamps and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi bested Patrick Sydow and Jan Pallares to gain the early advanrage. Memphis answered back in a hurry, taking court three by a count of 6-3 where James Story and Jeremy Taylor beat Mikhail Sokolovskiy and Kento Yamada. The Knights earned the match's first point on court one where No. 13 Trey Hilderbrand and Bogdan Pavel edged No. 28 David Stevenson and Oscar Cutting by a score of 7-6 (7-3). Hilderbrand and Pavel improve to 7-1 this season with five victories in six tries over ranked opponents.
It was practically smooth sailing in singles for the Knights as they took five of six first sets.
No. 102 Grassi Mazzuchi cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 win over Cutting on court three as the first match to finish in singles. Grassi Mazzuchi made a 22-spot jump in last week's Oracle/ITA singles rankings and looks to keep climbing as he moves to 13-5 in singles this season.
Sokolovskiy finished mere moments after Grassi Mazzuchi as he lcoked up court six with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Sydow. Sokolovskiy has won a pair of consecutive matches and is also 13-5 this season.
UCF earned the clincher on court two as Alan Rubio pulled out an ace to seal his match, beating No. 106 Stevenson 6-1, 6-4 to secure UCF's 10th straight victory. Rubio has defeated three ranked opponents on his way to an 11-7 record on the campaign.
The three remaining courts went unfinished. No. 3 Decamps was leading No. 50 Story by a set on court one and was on serve in the second frame but trailing 4-3. Yamada dropped his first frame to Pallares but was leading 5-3 in the second stanza. Hilderbrand earned a tiebreaking victory over Taylor and was ahead 3-1 in the second set.
UCF advances to 18-3 with the win and are 6-0 over conference opponents this season. They have nine victories over ranked opponent sin 12 tries and are 10-2 at home. The Knights are winners of 16 of their last 17.
UP NEXT
The Black and Gold will close out their season against No. 38 Tulsa at home on Tuesday at 5 p.m.
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