Box Score (.pdf)
Spartanburg, S.C. – The USC Upstate men's tennis team won its final three singles matches on Friday afternoon to defeat the Eastern Washington Eagles 4-3 in its season opener from the USC Upstate Tennis Complex.
USC Upstate improves to 1-0 on the season while Eastern Washington falls to 0-2 overall.
The Spartans won two of the three doubles matches to take an early 1-0 lead over the Eagles. After dropping the No. 1 match, USC Upstate responded by winning at No. 2 and No. 3. Luka Eble and Francisco Neto got things started by defeating Victor Pereira and Jeremy Field 6-4. In the No. 3 match, Felix Ewers and Samuel Schiano captured the doubles point by winning 7-6(4) against Ricardo Almeida and Martin Bats.
Eastern Washington began singles play by winning at No. 1, No. 2 and No. 6 to go ahead 3-1. The Spartans started their comeback at the No. 5 position when Eble topped Almeida in three sets 6-0, 0-6, 6-2. Ignacio Garrido tied the match at 3-3 after holding off Jeremy Mueller in another three-set match 6-1, 5-7, 6-3.
Neto fell behind to Field in his No. 3 match after dropping the first set 6-1. The sophomore fought back to even the match by taking the second set 7-5. The third, and final, set featured extra points as Neto held off Field 7-6(4) for the victory.
COACH'S QUOTE
"First of all, full credit to EWU. Those guys flew in yesterday and they were ready to go today and jumped on us to start doubles and singles. They outplayed and outcompeted us for a lot of the match. We're just really proud of the way our guys hung around and kept ourselves in the match. We were shorthanded today but Sam (Schiano) and Felix (Ewers) stepped up in doubles to clinch the point for us, and then in singles we had to battle back from 3-1 down but had Luka (Eble) come up huge in his first collegiate dual match. Our captain, Ignacio (Garrido), got us back even and Francisco (Neto) really dug deep to pull out a nail biter for us. Great effort from the team today when our backs were against the wall. Now we have to recover and do it all over again tomorrow against a very good Appalachian State team" – Tim McLane, assistant coach
UP NEXT
USC Upstate hosts Appalachian State tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. from the USC Upstate Tennis Complex.
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