ETSU men’s tennis played an exciting home match against the University of New Mexico on Sunday, March 19.
Due to the weather, the event took place indoors in Bristol, Tennessee.
“It was probably our best win so far because they were ranked a couple of weeks ago. I think going to Bristol helped us because they don’t really play much indoors in New Mexico; they have great weather.” said head coach Martin Stiegwardt.
In singles, junior Dimitri Badra (Maracay, Venezuela) defeated Arda Azkara (6-3, 7-5), earning his tenth win of the season and the eighth in a row.
Also in singles, junior Thiago Pernas (Buenos Aires, Argentina) beat Rafael Abdulsalam (6-3, 6-4) and holds a four-game win streak. Junior Adam Nagoudi (Tunis, Tunisia) won against Georgio Samaha (7-6, 6-4). The final win for singles from the Buccaneers was sophomore Francisco Lamas (Maracay, Venezuela), who defeated Nikolay Sysoev (6-3, 7-5) and earned his fifth singles win of the year. The University of New Mexico earned two singles wins.
For the doubles teams, sophomore Juan Lombisano (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and freshman Peter Kalocsai (Hungary) were paired together to defeat Samaha and Aram Noroozian (6-4). The second winning doubles pair was Lamas and freshman Pedro Cressoni (Sao Paulo, Brazil), who triumphed over Abdulsalam and Ryoma Matsushita (6-3). Lamas and Cressoni have earned a 7-4 record playing together so far this season.
“We had our full lineup against New Mexico, which I think was only the second time this year that we’ve had our full lineup. I think it shows a little bit of our true level when we are healthy,” said Coach Stiegwardt.
ETSU won the match with an overall score of 5-2, making their season score 7-9. The Bucs will be on the road on Friday, March 24 to play the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
