Box Score

MOBILE, Ala. – After losing the doubles point and falling behind 2-0 after one singles match, the University of South Alabama men’s tennis team won four singles matches in straight sets to book an appearance in the final of the Sun Belt Championships, defeating No. 2 seed Florida Atlantic 4-2 Friday afternoon at the Bruce David Lubel Memorial Tennis Courts.

The third-seeded Jaguars will face fourth-seeded Middle Tennessee Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. for the school’s 17th conference title and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“If someone had told me we would have beaten FAU without the doubles point, I would have been like, Wow, that’s going to be extremely hard,” USA head coach Nick Brochu said. “Well, it was extremely hard. FAU is a very tough team from top to bottom. Our guys stepped up big today. This year we’ve been talking about delivering when it matters and that’s what we did today.”

A victory at No. 3 singles put FAU up 2-0. USA junior Romain Bocaert (Lille, France) got USA on the board with a 6-2, 6-4 win at the No. 1 flight over No. 120 Marc Abdelnour. Senior Lucas Viel (Boussy Saint Antione, France) and junior Dauw Kruger (Pretoria, South Africa) followed with straight-sets wins at No. 5 and No. 6, respectively to give the Jags a 3-2 lead.

Sophomore Alexandre Bernard (Soisy Sur Seine, France) won the first set at No. 2, 6-2, and won the first two games of the second set before allowing Ervin Garibovic to take a 3-2 advantage. Bernard tied the set four times, answering on serve each occasion, including down 6-5 to force a tiebreaker.

In the tiebreaker, after Bernard grabbed a 5-2 lead, Garbovic closed to within 5-4. But Bernard served out the match to claim the victory.

“We were just tough from the first point to the last one,” said Brochu. “I knew this was going to be a big battle. We’ve played so many times in the past, and it’s never been in straight sets. It’s always three sets on all six courts. Even though they came back in the match, we didn’t flinch. Maybe that hurt them a little bit. Maybe they were expecting us to start shaking to get nervous, but we weren’t at all.”

The Owls earned the doubles point after a tense tiebreaker at No. 1. The teams split the first two matches, bringing the crucial point down to a battle between Bocaert and junior Hanno Bartsch (Pretoria, South Africa), and FAU’s team of Abdelnour and Garibovic.

Neither side was separated by more than one game and Bocaert held serve at love to force a tiebreaker. The Owls jumped out to a 3-0 lead and held on 7-4 to earn the point.

“I have to give credit to FAU, they played big,” Brochu said. “They played strong, and when they beat you in a tiebreaker, all you can do is shake their hands and say, ‘We’ll see you in singles.’ Before singles we talked and made sure they knew that it was only one out of seven points. Usually it is a big point, but today we didn’t let it affect us.”

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com.  Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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