Men's Tennis Splits in First Two Matches in Florida
Augustana Box |
Warner Box
KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Davenport men's tennis has gone 1-1 over their first two matches in the state of Florida on their annual spring break trip. The Panthers posted a solid 5-4 win over Augustana on Monday before falling 8-1 to No. 18 Warner University yesterday. DU faces Webber International today before finishing their trip on Friday against Mount St. Mary.
The men's tennis team continued to play against some of the top competition they can find and Tuesday's match against NAIA No. 18 Warner University proved to be one of their toughest. DU fell by the score of 8-1 but many matches came right down to the wire.
Warner won all three doubles matches but narrowly escaped with wins at No. 1 and No. 3 by the scores of 8-6. Mattheus Carvalho and
Christian Woods teamed up at No. 3 while
Vitaly Shumilov partnered with
Eric Pell at No. 1. On the singles side, DU was close in almost every match but the only point they could get was at No. 5 from
Eric Pell who won 6-4, 6-3.
The Warner match came a day after Davenport started their trip with a 5-4 win over Augustana. After a slow start that saw the team dig themselves a 3-0 hole in doubles, the guys re-grouped and took five of the six singles matches to defeat AU.
The top three seeds of Shumilov,
Victor Roland and Woods each won their matches to make the score 3-3 and then DU got ahead thanks to Carvalho at No. 4 with a dramatic three-set win 6-1, 5-7, 6-4. With one more match needed,
Eric Pell won a tough first set and then served his way through the second to win the match.
Keaton Briggs came back from a set down to force a 10 pt tiebreak to decide 6 singles but came a few points short.
It marked the first time in
Patrick Grashorn's playing or coaching career he has been a part of a team that has come back to win the match after trailing 3-0 after doubles.
