Following last week’s disappointing loss versus Virginia Commonwealth University, the ETSU men’s tennis team managed to get back on track on Sunday afternoon. A powerful victory of 5-2 against the visiting Appalachian State Mountaineers ended a three-match losing streak for the Buccaneers, including No. 42 Utah, No. 46 BYU and VCU.
The first victory of the afternoon belonged to the Bucs’ red-shirt sophomore Dimitri Badra (Maracay, Venezuela), who fended off the Appalachian State in an outstanding two sets 6-3, 6-0.
Finishing second of the afternoon in the No. 5 slot was freshman Thiago Pernas (Buenos Aires, Argentina) who displayed his excellent young potential in a two-set victory over the Mountaineers finishing with 6-3, 6-2.
Not to be outdone, the Buccaneers’ No. 1 slot went to junior Yusuf Khamis (Cairo, Egypt) who fended off the Mountaineers’ Aleksandar Petrovic (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) in two sets by a score of 6-3, 6-4.
The last singles victory on the afternoon for ETSU belonged to senior standout Miguel Este (Caracas, Venezuela) who handled business against Alessio Azzalini (Rome, Italy) prevailing in a two set 6-4, 7-5 victory.
In doubles play, the Bucs were able to secure the point following a 6-1 victory by Buccaneer Este and Badra, and followed quickly by a 6-3 Buccaneer victory by the team of senior Juan Lugo (Maracay, Venezuela) and junior Dylan Bednarczyk (Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada).
The Bucs improved to a 2-6 overall record on the season. Meanwhile, Appalachian State drops to a 1-5 overall record. Neither team has faced a conference opponent yet in 2020.
In their next match-up, the men’s tennis team has a tall task ahead of them as they will travel to Birmingham, Alabama, to take on Samford University in the first Southern Conference match-up of the 2020 spring season on Feb. 22. During the following matches, the Bucs will be at home to face Charlotte on Feb. 29.
