March 24, 2009

Final Stats

KENNESAW, Ga. - The USC Upstate men's tennis team won its 15th straight match, matching the second-longest winning streak in school history, as Upstate posted a 6-1 win over first-year program Kennesaw State in Atlantic Sun Conference action at the KSU Tennis Complex on Tuesday afternoon.

With the win, head coach Alessandro De Marzo, in his fifth year as head coach of both the men's and women's tennis programs, moved one win shy of the school record of wins as tennis coach, held by Alan Ferguson, who won 117 matches with the men's program from 1988-97 and 40 with the women's program from 1991-97 for 157 career wins. De Marzo has a 73-26 record with the women's program and a 83-26 record with men's program, giving him 156 wins since taking over in 2004.

The Spartans (17-2 overall, 5-0 A-Sun) started the day by quickly posting two doubles wins before sweeping the three matches. At No. 2, junior Jack Roux and senior Leandro Osorio posted an 8-2 win over Lawrence Washington and Ryan Bouttell and at No. 3, the freshmen pair of Ramiro Blanco and Edgar Rodriguez downed Justin Suesserman and Dylan Higgins, 8-3. The junior pair of Renzo Airaldi and Javier Tori added the final win with a 9-7 thriller over Tyler Mills and Michael Langel at No. 1.

The doubles win was both Airaldi and Tori's 60th career doubles win, as they joined a group of just three other players in the club, including current senior teammate Osorio, who is second in school history with 67 career doubles, four shy of the school record set by Stefan Dumitrescu (2003-07), who teamed with Airaldi to earn ITA Division II All-American honors in 2007. Jose Luis Reyes won 63 matches from 2001-05.

Upstate quickly wrapped up the match with three two-set wins, as Rodriguez downed Mills, 6-2, 6-4, at No. 1, Tori defeated Langel, 6-3, 6-4, at No. 3 and Blanco posted his 17th straight win with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Bouttell at No. 4. The win, Upstate's 15th in a row, matched the 2007 team's 15-match winning streak, which is second in school history only to the 2003 team, which won 18 in a row en route to a Peach Belt Conference regular-season title.

Airaldi wrapped up a 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 win over Washington at No. 2 singles to give Upstate a 5-0 lead before two matches went into super-set tiebreakers, with Osorio coming out on top at No. 5 against Suesserman, 6-2, 7-6, 10-1 and freshman Ignacio Velez falling at No. 6 to Denis Sergeychik, 2-6, 6-4, 10-3.

The Spartans get back in action on Friday when they return home to the USC Upstate Tennis Complex for an important A-Sun match with Jacksonville, who is 4-2 in conference. The match is set to start at 2 p.m.