STATESBORO, Ga. ? After winning the early doubles point, the Georgia Southern men's tennis team dropped four singles matches, as Chattanooga edged the Eagles by a 4-3 final on Sunday afternoon, at the Hanner Tennis Complex in Statesboro.
The Eagles (8-11, 4-5 SoCon) were successful at the No. 1 doubles position as Borja Malet (Barcelona, Spain) and Joris De Weerdt (Mortsel, Belgium) dropped the Mocs' tandem of Badr Bouabdellah and Razvan Axente 8-1. GSU also notched a victory from the No. 3 seed as teammates Philip Prins (Cape Town, South Africa) and Gregory Bekkers (Antwerp, Belgium) downed Pavel Vostrikov and Rick Van de Bovenkamp by a 9-7 decision.
Chattanooga (12-8, 3-6 SoCon) earned the match victory with the game locked at 3-3, when Mocs' freshman Robert Diamond upended Georgia Southern's Rasim Magafurov (Ufa, Russia) 7-5, 6-2 from the No. 6 seed. Bekkers earned his second consecutive victory from the No. 3 position as he ousted Axente in three sets, 6-4, 2-6, 6-0. Prins notched his second victory of the afternoon taking down Chattanooga's Hasan Hamadeh in straight sets, winning 6-2, 6-3 from the No. 5 slot.
The Eagles conclude the regular season on Friday, April 11 as they play host to South Carolina State. The contest will be senior day for Emmanuel Nkoueleue (Douala, Cameroon) and is slated to begin at 2 p.m.
Doubles:
- Malet/De Weerdt (GSU) def. Bouabdellah/Axente (UTC) 8-1
- Diamond/Sauska (UTC) def. Sands/Paetz (GSU) 8-4
- Prins/Bekkers (GSU) def. Vostrikov/Van de Bovenkamp (UTC) 9-7
Singles:
- Peter Sauska (UTC) def. Joris De Weerdt (GSU) 6-1, 6-4
- Badr Bouabdellah (UTC) def. Borja Malet (GSU) 6-2, 6-3
- Gregory Bekkers (GSU) def. Razvan Axente (UTC) 6-4, 2-6, 6-0
- Pavel Vostrikov (UTC) def. Mark Paetz (GSU) 6-2, 6-3
- Philip Prins (GSU) def. Hasan Hamadeh (UTC) 6-0, 6-3
- Robert Diamond (UTC) def. Rasim Magafurov (GSU) 7-5, 6-2
