The Tennessee Tennis team got off to a good start in the O’Charley’s Classic Saturday afternoon winning easily over ETSU 7-0.
The victory raised the Vols season record to 2-0 and sets up a rematch in Sunday’s final of last years national semifinal with VCU.
Tennessee played without junior Peter Handoyo who is nursing an injury and senior Mark Parsons who did not play his singles match due to a slight back strain.
The Vols looked impressive winning all three doubles matches to take the doubles point.
The nation’s No. 6 duo of Parsons and Adam Carey won their match at the No. 1 position defeating ETSU’s Gustavo Gomez and Roberto Fernandez 8-1.
The newly-formed pair of Paul Prodbury and Mario Toledo defeated Bucs Marcos Pavlovich and Jaun Yannuzzi 8-4 at No. 2.
The No. 3 match saw the freshman duo of Simon Rea and Wade Orr defeating ETSU’s Pablo Sahagan and Francisco Diaz 8-5.
The Vol netters were also dominant on the singles side as they took all six matches without dropping a set.
The nation’s No. 60 player Carey took care of business at the No. 1 position defeating Gomez 6-1, 6-2.
“Adam deserves all the accolades today,” Tennessee Head Coach Michael Fancutt said.
“He played great stepping up to No. 1 with both Mark and Pete out.
He has been working really hard and putting in lots of extra time and as we saw today it is paying off. Adam showed today the leadership that was missing from our team last year, he played like a true leader in both his singles and doubles match,” Fancutt said.
Other singles winners for the Vols included Toledo, No. 55 Prodbury (clinching point), Rea, Orr and Andy Crews.
Saturday also marked the first home match for Toledo and Rea, both of whom won impressively.
“We had a few injuries today that allowed some of our younger players to get a shot and I believe they did well carrying the day,” Fancutt said.
“ETSU is an underrated team and we are very happy with the results. We are also really looking forward to (Sunday’s) match with VCU. I would like some revenge for last year’s NCAA semifinal loss.
“A lot of our guys have had this match circled for a long time and hopefully we can come out tomorrow and get the result we have worked so hard for this year.”
On Sunday, ETSU faced the University of Louisville in the third-place match, wherin Louisville bounced back and won 4-0.
Louisville led from start to finish and raised their season record to 8-3.
“I feel good about how our players responded and bounced back after a tough loss to NCAA finalist VCU,” Louisville Head Coach Rex Ecarma said.
“We were extremely disappointed last night about letting VCU get out of our grasp.
“We had them down in all for singles matches, but we came back today and played with a lot of heart shutting out the defending Southern Conference regular-season champions.
“Now we are just looking forward to improving as the season progresses.”
Louisville took the doubles point winning the first two doubles matches.
The third match was not finished after the point had been decided due to time constraints.
The Louisville duo of Cody Conley and Brent McCombe won their match at the No. 2 position over Pavlovich Yannuzzi, 8-5.
Louisville’s Jake Kirts and Oliver Cantrell then clinched the doubles point with an 8-4 victory over Diaz and Sahagan in the No. 3 match.
Louisville then swept the only three singles matches that were completed led by Conley who got the clinching point in the No. 4 match over Yannuzzi 6-2, 6-3.
ETSU returns to the courts Feb. 24-26 at Clemson, S.C.

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