PENSACOLA, Fla. – Following a tough loss on Thursday to the nation's No. 1 team, the Valdosta State men's tennis team rebounded on Friday with back-to-back victories over the No. 7 ranked Concordia (5-4) Clippers and Gulf South Conference foe Mississippi College (5-1) in Pensacola, Fla.
VSU opened up with three straight wins in doubles play against Concordia, beginning with an 8-4 triumph for
Edward Nguyen and
Niklas Herbring at No. 1 over Ofir Ginat and Jui Mao.
Ramon Weil and
Gereon Heitmann followed suit, defeating Benas Majauskas and Tomasz Olfans 8-2 at No. 2, before
Francisco Yim Kim teamed up with
Leo Blay to put away Rafael Ferreira and Juuso Ojanen 8-4 at No. 3.
Concordia regained momentum in singles play, as Mau Ray defeated Blay 6-3, 6-3 at No. 1 and Ojanen claimed a 6-4, 6-4 win over Yim Kim. Herbring helped hold the Clippers at bay, however, with a critical 7-6(4), 6-2 victory at No. 3.
Heitmann fell 6-4, 6-3 to Majauskas at No. 4, and
Joachim Schemm dropped a 7-6(5), 6-2 loss at No. 6, but the Blazers secured the win at No. 5 with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win for Nguyen over Ferreira.
The No. 10 Blazers improved to 12-4, 7-1 in GSC play with the pair of victories. Meanwhile, the loss marked just the third of the season for the Clippers, as the team dropped to 9-3 overall. The Blazers' win over MC dropped the Choctaws to 4-8 on the year, 1-4 in league play.
Against the Choctaws in the second match of the day, Heitmann joined Weil at No. 1 doubles to defeat Petar Domjanovic and Lucio Menezes 8-1, and Yim Kim teamed up with Herbring at No. 2 to overtake Matthew Martin and Joan Valy 8-6. Travis Burdick and Dudley Lampton provided MC's lone point of the match with an 8-6 win over Schemm and
Andrew Harvin at No. 3.
Valdosta State picked up three singles victories to claim the match, beginning with Herbring's 6-1, 6-4 win over Menezes at No. 2, followed by a 6-1, 6-3 win for Schemm at No. 4 over Damjanovic.
Weil closed out the day with a dominant 6-0, 6-0 victory over Jose Rodrigo Gonzalez at No. 5, which represented the Blazers' fifth and final point of the match.
The Blazers close out their series of neutral games in Pensacola, Fla. tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. with a matchup against Georgia Gwinnett.
