CONWAY, S.C. – South Alabama Men's Tennis was solid all-around Friday afternoon as the Jaguars defeated Coastal Carolina, 4-1, to open Sun Belt Conference play with a victory.
 
The victory improved South's record to 4-9 for the season with a 1-0 mark in conference matches.
 
"That's how you want to open the Sun Belt regular season, with a good, 4-1 win," said South Alabama head coach Nick Brochu. "We knew it was going to be a game of momentum, and the guys stepped up. Credit to Coastal. They came back and really fought hard."
 
The doubles point was highly-contested with courts one and three taking extra work to clinch, but South Alabama started the match with a 1-0 lead thanks to some clutch doubles play. After dropped court two, the Jags needed wins on one and three to get the doubles point. Juan Accossatto and Romeo Hadzimehmedovic combined to win 7-5 on court one to get half the job done. Victor Frumholz and Harold van Raemdonck then teamed up to win a tiebreak 7-6 (7-4) to put the Jags ahead.
 
"We knew that doubles was going to be very big," Brochu added. "If we can win doubles and get a big start in a few first sets, then the hill looks very steep for them to climb back. Doubles came down to the wire and it was very close, but we stepped up at the end big time."
 
Needing just three wins in six singles matches to earn the team victory, South quickly got to work on winning the match. Raemdonck continued his hot streak by defeating Curzio Manucci in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. Accossatto followed by winning a big first set 7-5, and eventually won his second set 6-3 to earn a second victory for the Jaguars. The match then came down to court four where Javier Montoya fought to win a first set in tiebreak fashion. He then finished the match off in the second set to win 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.
 
"Harold beat a really good player," said Brochu. "Juan played an amazing match. That was probably my favorite match today. That was great to watch. At the end, our captain Javi closed it out at number one. Javi came up big to win a big first set, then we got relaxed and came up with a big break at the end to close it like a champ."
 
South Alabama will stay on the road for its next conference match against Georgia Southern. The Jags and Eagles will battle on Sunday, March 16. First serve is slated for 10 a.m. CT.
 
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