March 14, 2008

Tar Heel Men's Tennis Team Wins Sixth Straight Match

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Ninth-ranked North Carolina ran its record to 10-3 on the season with its sixth successive dual match win, beating Navy 7-0 in a neutral site match played in Jacksonville, Fla.

Carolina won two of three doubles matches to seize the team point and go up 1-0 in the match. Carolina then ran the table in the six singles matches to run the final score to 7-0. UNC won all six singles matche sin straight sets, dropping only 24 games in the six matches combined. Senior Benjamin Carlotti, ranked No. 112 nationally, led the Tar Heels with a win at No. 1 singles, beating Nate Nelms of the Midshipmen, 6-1, 6-4.

Also winning for the Tar Heels were sophomore Stefan Hardy, sophomore Clay Donato, sophomore Chris Kearney, junior Taylor Fogleman and senior Will Plyler at Nos. 2-6, respectively.

Miami Rolls Past Purdue for Fifth-Straight Win

CORAL GABLES, Fla. - The No. 18 University of Miami men's tennis team swept doubles play and won five of six singles matches to roll past No. 54 Purdue, 6-1, on Thursday afternoon at home at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center.

It marked the fifth-straight win for the Hurricanes, as they improved to 9-2 overall - including an undefeated 6-0 at home. With their second-straight loss, the Boilermakers fell to 7-6.

"I was very pleased with our performance today," said Miami head coach Mario Rincon. "Keith [Crowley] did a tremendous job to come back and win at the number five singles. The match today will give us momentum as we go into a very difficult ACC match against FSU on Saturday."

Jackets Fall to No. 3 Georgia, 7-0

ATHENS, Ga. - Playing singles with five freshmen in the lineup, the Georgia Tech men's tennis team (9-4, 1-2 ACC) fell to No. 3 Georgia (14-1, 4-0 SEC), 7-0, Wednesday afternoon at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex on the University of Georgia campus.

"We played some pretty good doubles today but our singles was not up to par," head coach Kenny Thorne said. "I give Georgia a lot of credit; they played very hard and solid. We are going to see what we are made of on Friday because we have to show up against Arizona State."

The Yellow Jackets opened the day with some good doubles play behind a win at the No. 1 position from Scott Blackmon and Ryan Smith over No. 60 Jamie Hunt and Nate Schnugg, 9-8 (9-7). The Jackets were unable to capitalize as Guillermo Gomez and George Gvelesiani, playing at No. 2 doubles, gave the No. 57 tandem of Javier Garrapiz and Travis Helgeson all they could handle, eventually falling, 9-7, and Doug Kenny and Eliot Potvin dropped their match to Joshua Varela and Christian Vitulli, 8-2, to give Georgia a 1-0 edge.

No. 6 UCLA Hands Duke 6-1 Loss

LOS ANGELES - The Duke men's tennis team took on one of the top teams in the country on Wednesday and came away with a 6-1 loss to No. 6 UCLA at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.

The Bruins took all three doubles matches and five of the six singles contests en route to the victory that took their season record to 12-1. The loss drops the Blue Devils to 3-6 overall on the year.

Duke's only victory on the day came at the No. 4 singles position where Dylan Arnould battled back after losing the first set on a tiebreaker 7-6 (5) to take the second set 6-3. With the match already clinched by UCLA, the two players played a super tiebreaker and Arnould came out on top 11-9 for his 10th victory of the year. He is the fourth Blue Devil to hit double figures in singles victories this season. He is now 4-2 at the No. 4 spot in singles.

No. 15 Arizona State Defeats Clemson 6-1

ATLANTA - The 15th-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils defeated Clemson 6-1 in a men's intercollegiate tennis match at Atlanta, GA Wednesday evening. With the win, Arizona State improves to 10-0 on the year, while Clemson falls to 10-10 this season.

The Sun Devils won two of their doubles matches to earn the doubles point. The No. 31 ranked team of Matt Brooklyn and T.J. Bellama earned a 9-8 victory over Clemson's Ike Belk and Derek DiFazio. Wes Miller and John Nanosky II registered an 8-6 win over Gera Boryachinskiy and Kevin Galloway. Clemson's Carlos Alvarez and Kevin Fleck defeated Andres Arango and Harry Skinner 8-3.

In singles, the Sun Devils took five of the six matches. Clemson's lone win came at the number one position as Alvarez defeated Brooklyn 7-5, 5-7, 6-0.

Louisville Hands Virginia Tech First Loss

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Virginia Tech men's tennis team dropped three, three-set singles matches and suffered its first loss of the 2008 dual match season, 5-2, to No. 45 Louisville. The match was played indoors at the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center on the University of Louisville campus. Louisville improved to 12-3 with the victory.

Tech (9-1), ranked No. 31 in this week's Intercollegiate Tennis Association poll, dominated the doubles to capture the first point of the day, but dropped five of the six singles contests in the loss.

In singles action, the Hokies lone win came at No. 5 as Sebastien Jacques (Fr., Magog, Quebec, Canada) defeated Robert Rotaru, 6-2, 6-4. Albert Larregola (Sr., Lleida, Spain), ranked No. 54 nationally, lost at No. 1 to No. 42 Austen Childs, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, while Nicolas Delgado de Robles (Jr., Madrid, Spain) fell 6-2, 6-4, at No. 2 versus David Simon.

NC State Falls 4-3 to Notre Dame on First Day of Blue/Gray Invitational

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - NC State's match with Notre Dame came down to the wire, and in the end it came down to losing the doubles point and a tense three-set match at No. 6 singles for the second straight contest. The No. 30 Irish (10-4) used an 8-6 win at No. 3 doubles to take the early lead and hold on against a furious No. 49 Wolfpack (6-6) rally in singles.

The Fighting Irish are the defending Blue Gray Tennis Classic champions and have won it three times overall in its program history.

The match got started with a tightly contested doubles point that saw the Wolfpack fall for just the fourth time in 12 matches this season. Nick Cavaday and Jay Weinacker opened up play with a win at No. 1 singles, 8-4, to improve to 7-2 overall in the spring. The Wolfpack duo is ranked No. 6 nationally.