JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The University of South Alabama men's tennis team fell, 4-3 to the University of North Florida at the UNF Tennis Complex on Saturday afternoon.
The doubles pair of Maxime Lapraille and Louis Delcour defeated their UNF foes, 6-3 on court three to give the Jags an early 1-0 lead in the doubles point. Sacha Modica and Sam Serrano fell 6-4 to their opponents and the No. 19 ranked dup of Loic Cloes and Clement Marzol were left in a battle on court one for the point. Cloes and Marzol fell 7-6 in that match and the Ospreys came away with the doubles point.
South Alabama dropped every first set on the six courts in the singles portion of today's match, but the Jags fought hard. After Marzol and Modica fell in straight sets to their opponents, South was down 3-0. Sam Serrano put the Jaguars on the board with a three-set win on court four. The Ospreys clinched the match with a win on court four, but Cloes and Delcour finished out their individual matches with big wins and made the final score a one-point decision.
DOUBLES
(1) Deshmukh/Duarte def. No. 19 Cloes/Marzol, 7-6 (6-4)
(2) Nunez/Nani def. Modica/Serrano, 6-4.
(3) Lapraille/Delcour def. Barton/Von Winning, 6-3.
Order of finish: 3,2,1
SINGLES
(1) Sahil Deshmukh def. Clement Marzol, 6-2, 6-3.
(2) Dominik Barton def. Sacha Modica, 6-2, 6-2.
(3) Loic Cloes def. Till Von Winning, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.
(4) Sam Serrano def. Jorge Nunez, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
(5) Nilo Duarte def. Maxime Lapraille, 6-1, 5-7, 7-5.
(6) Louis Delcour def. Federico Nani, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-3).
Order of finish: 1,2,4,5,3,6
NOTES
South Alabama moves to 10-4 on the season, this is the first time since the first two matches of the season that the Jaguars have dropped two straight matches.
UP NEXT
The Jaguars head to Orlando, Fla., to take on No. 33 ranked UCF on Monday afternoon.
QUOTES
Head Coach Nick Brochu
"Well today was a little hard. It's always very difficult when you have a very long match, like we did against South Florida the day before. You play for more than three hours and come up just short. It's always hard to turn around and play another competitive match the next morning. We played some ok doubles, didn't go our way; Loic lost a close doubles point."
"It's almost like they knocked the wind out of us a little bit. We went into singles, with the fatigue from yesterday and not winning the doubles point, I think it was very easy today for the guys to be negative. A lot of guys were not on with their game today. We made a lot of unforced errors. It got to us, and we lost all of the first sets on all six courts."
"Being tired from the night before, and then losing the doubles point, the guys looking up to see everyone lost the first set, it seemed like a very steep slope to climb and try to get the win. Especially when we had our top two players getting beat fairly quickly to put us down 3-0. That definitely hurt, but then, we got to work. I was very happy with how some guys were able to dig and make it three sets. I think we maybe fell four points shy of winning 4-3 and having one of the best comebacks we have ever had."
"UNF played really solid, they were really tough at the end. We started winning the second sets, came back and we had the momentum. We fell a little short at number five. We came back at three four and six. We have to look at the positives and how were able to fight. So yes, we did lose 4-3 but it could have easily been a 7-0 UNF win if we didn't fight back."
"We have a day of rest tomorrow and get ready for UCF. That's going to be another battle. We have to get back and show everyone that were talented and were working really hard, so looking forward to playing UCF."
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/WeAreSouth_JAGS. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
Join the Baseline Club, the tennis-specific support club of the Jaguar Athletic Fund. All donations to the Baseline Club go directly to support the South Alabama men's and women's tennis programs. For more information on how you can join visit: http://jaguarathleticfund.com/baselineclub
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