Men’s Tennis Closes-Out Georgia Southern Championships
10/7/2012 10:37:29 PM | Men's Tennis
VIDEO: Post-match interview with Coach Nick Zieziula -- 10-7-2012
VIDEO: Post-match interview with Marco Osorio -- 10-7-2012
VIDEO: Post-match interview with Matthijs Verdam -- 10-7-2012
STATESBORO, Ga. – Georgia Southern Men’s Tennis played host to the Georgia Southern Championships this weekend at the Hanner Tennis Complex. The Eagles were represented in two of the three main draw finals and also earned a consolation bracket title at home in singles and reached the semifinals in doubles play.
“Overall, we improved a lot this weekend, and that is the important part of the fall season,” said Head Coach Nick Zieziula. “To be able to host an event at home and bring in some nationally ranked programs and lots of high level competition for our entire roster to compete against is a great positive for our team.”
In the top-flight Blue Draw, Georgia Southern’s Matthijs Verdam reached the semifinal with 6-3, 6-4 and 7-5, 7-5 wins in the opening rounds before falling to the eventual champion, 6-4, 6-4. Verdam rebounded in Sunday’s third place match, downing Arkansas’ Christian Lee, 7-5, 6-1 to take third place.
“Matthijs had a good showing this weekend earning third place,” said Zieziula. “His performance this weekend is going to help with his confidence going into the ITA Regional Tournament.”
In the Blue Draw consolation bracket, Georgia Southern’s Oliver Webb downed his teammate Alex Doherty 7-5, 6-2 to bounce back from and opening round defeat. Winning the Blue Draw Championship was Georgia State’s Victor Valente 6-7, 7-5, 10-5 over him teammate, Robert Schulze.
Headlining the White Draw for Georgia Southern was Marco Osorio’s march to the Championship Match. The Eagle downed two seeded opponents en route to the finale, but fell 6-3, 6-4 to Georgia State’s Lucas Santana. The marathon match went two and a half hours.
“Marco was tremendous when receiving serves today,” said Zieziula. “We’ve just got to work on tightening up service games to consolidate those break points.”
In the third place match of the White Draw, Georgia State’s Sofiane Chevallier downed Southern’s Albert Codina Sala 6-0, 6-7 (6), 6-2, despite Codina Sala’s strong play to force a third set.
“Albert had a great battle today,” said Zieziula. “He came back from being down 5-2 in the second set to force a third set, saving two match points in the tiebreaker.”
Georgia Southern’s Rafael Racy won the Gold Draw with a 2-0 record in round-robin play. In the medal round, Racy downed USC Aiken’s Lucas Gobbi 6-3, 6-2 to take the title.
On the doubles side, Georgia Southern wasn’t as successful with just Webb and Andrew Dromsky reaching the second day of doubles play alive in the main draw. They defeated a pair from SCAD, 8-2 before besting Kennesaw State’s Pena and Toliver 8-4 in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the pair fell to Georgia State’s Valente and Santana, 8-4. In the doubles finale, Chevallier and Schulze from Georgia State defeated their teammates to win the Doubles Championship, 8-6.
On October 18th, the Eagles travel to the ITA Southeast Regional in Tallahassee which runs through October 21st at Florida State’s Scott Speicher Tennis Center.
Fans can follow their Eagles at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com or receive short updates at facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics or on Google+ at gplus.to/GSAthletics.
