JACKSONVILLE – The Gamecock men's tennis team kicked off their Fall 2022 slate over the weekend with the Gamecock Hidden Duals and finished 4-1 in those matches against North Alabama.
"This was a very important weekend for us," head coach
Mike Mucci said following the event. "North Alabama came down and competed hard and play toe-to-toe with us, especially on Day 1. They have a new coaching staff that has brought a lot of energy and discipline to their program.
"Even though we won a large portion of the matches in both doubles and singles, there are a lot of things we saw that we need to clean up in order to get to where we need to be in the Spring," Mucci said. "This was a good first weekend competing as a group, and we will learn and grow from this with the young and talented team we have."
Action began Saturday afternoon at the JSU Tennis Courts. Jacksonville State swept the doubles portion of competitions before splitting their two rounds of singles.
On Saturday, JSU's duo of junior
Vanja Dobrnjac and redshirt freshman
Lucius Soller topped North Alabama's Carlos Matarredona and Nazar Fedoryshyn 6-2 in doubles competition. In other doubles action, freshmen
Alin Fatu and
Matei Palcau beat Lions Lachlan Brain and Chris Zhang 7-6 (5). In the final doubles match of the day, Gamecock sophomore
Vicente Arbelaez and freshman
Xavier Sarda Marti knocked off Jamie Bixby and Guilherme Diniz 6-2.
In the first round of singles work, JSU finished on top in four of the six matches. Freshman
Agustin Cuellar defeated Matarredona 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, before Sarda Marti beat Fedoryshyn 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. After Arbelaez and Fatu fell in three sets, Jacksonville State was able to clinch a team victory when Soller (1-6, 7-5, 6-2 over Zhang) and sophomore
Daisuke Inagawa (7-6, 6-0 over Bixby) won their respective matchups.
North Alabama claimed the upper hand in Saturday's second round of singles. The Lions won three of the five matches later in the day, as Palcau fell in three sets (6-7, 6-4, 10-8) to Matarredona while sophomore
Logan Haga (6-7, 3-6 versus Zhang) and freshman
Konstantin Benneman (2-6, 4-6 versus Diniz) lost in two. Dobrnjac (7-6, 6-0 over Fedoryshyn) and freshman
Maximo Lucentini (6-2, 6-7, 10-2 over Bixby) claimed wins in their matches.
The following day saw one round of singles and one round of doubles competition get underway at the JSU Tennis Courts. This time around, Jacksonville State won both showdowns as a team to finish the Gamecock Hidden Duals.
In doubles matches, Cuellar and Lucentini defeated Matarredona and Zhang 6-4 before Haga and Benneman took down Bixby and Brain 7-6 (6). The Gamecocks' only loss in doubles competition on the weekend came when Inagawa and Soller narrowly fell against Diniz and Fedoryshyn, 7-5.
As for the singles competitors, Sarda Marti (6-3, 7-6 [4] over Matarredona) and Palcau (6-3, 6-1 over Fedoryshyn) reigned victorious in the opening two matches. In the next two games, Arbelaez defeated Zhang 6-2, 6-3, and Lucentini fell in three sets to Diniz, 4-6, 6-4, 2-6. In the final match of the weekend, Fatu topped Bixby 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, to secure a dominant victory for the Gamecocks.
Jacksonville State tennis resumes play later this month in the Peach State. Both the men's and women's tennis squads will travel to Macon, Ga., for the Mercer Gridiron Classic on Sept. 30-Oct. 1. After heading to Georgia Southern the following weekend, JSU's final Fall tune-up will come Oct. 13-18 in the ITA Regionals at LSU.
