ORLANDO, Fla. – The top-seeded Valdosta State men's tennis team opened the 2023 NCAA Division II Men's Tennis National Championship round of 16 with a 4-0 victory over No. 16-seed Fairmont State Thursday morning.
The Blazers improved to 20-0 this season with the victory and now will face No. 9-seed Cameron (Okla.) who is 17-3 this season at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon at the United States Tennis Center.
Click here for the NCAA Division II Men's Tennis Championship webpage for links to live stats and streaming of the match.
VSU, who entered ranked No. 2 nationally in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Top 25, made quick work of No. 35 Fairmont State in doubles as top duo of No. 15 ranked juniors
Luca Mack and
Rodrigo Carvalho won 6-1 over Alexandre Pages and Kan Watanabe. The Blazer duo rattled off six-straight wins after Pages/Watanabe won the first game of the match. At No. 3 doubles, Blazer duo of juniors
Christian Wedel and
Pedro Cordeiro won 6-3 over Mohamed El Helaly and Alex Stacy to clinch the point. At No. 2, sophomore
Lamar Bartley and senior
Christian Felline had a 5-4 lead over Elia Barozzi and Seena Saadevandi when the point was clinched.
The Blazers won the first set in all six singles matches as Carvalho, ranked No. 48 in singles, was the first to finish with a 6-2, 6-2 victory at No. 2 over Watanabe, while Wedel, ranked No. 55, downed Pages 6-4, 6-3, for a 3-0 lead and Cordeiro dispatched Stacy 6-3, 6-0, at No. 6 to win the match.
Mack, ranked No. 2 in singles, was up 6-3, 4-0 in the second set at No. 1 singles, when the match was clinched, while Bartley was leading 6-4, 4-1 at No. 3 and Felline was up 7-5, 4-1 at No. 5.
With the victory, the Blazers improved to 55-15 all-time in the NCAA postseason as the team won two national titles in 2006 and 2011, while it has three runner-up finishes and two fourth-place finishes in program history.
QUOTES
Valdosta State head coach John Hansen
"Even though we were playing a No. 16-seed, everybody here is very good. This was a very tough match. Fairmont State is a very good team, but we were a little bit more adapted to the weather than they were, which really helped us out. They have a young team and you can tell they are going to continue to improve and be back next year."
Fairmont State head coach Terry Deremer
On competing at the NCAA Championships: "Our guys fought hard. When I was at WVU, we went to the NCAA tournament three times. This team felt very similar to that. We had the will not to lose throughout the season, and that mentality gave us an opportunity to compete with the best."
On the learning experience at the NCAA Championships: "We will get better. Our guys are young, and we did not have any seniors on our roster. Valdosta State is very disciplined, and their preparation was phenomenal. We have to work on our conditioning and prepare for the heat in the postseason, and our legs gave out in the second set. You cannot put a measure on the experience of competing for the national championship."
