NEWBERRY, S.C. - The Newberry College men's tennis team won its fourth straight South Atlantic Conference match by taking down the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears, 9-0. It is the team's widest margin of victory this season.
“I knew the team had the talent all along, it was only a matter of time before they put it all together,” said head coach Jim Greene. “We hope to finish the season strong on Sunday in order to clinch the second seed in the conference tournament.”
For the first time all season, Newberry swept the doubles portion of the match to take an early 3-0 lead. The sweep was sealed when Pavle Popovic (Belgrade, Serbia) and Mark Boswell (Piedmont, S.C.) won the third flight match against Matt Gaines and Nathanael Summer (8-6). It's the duo's first doubles victory of the season.
Jeremy Smith (Durban, South Africa) and Felipe Sobrinho (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) earned one of their most dominant wins of the season by sweeping John and Barry Fichardt (8-0). Lucas Mattos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Maxim Sukharev (Vilnius, Lithuania) rolled through their doubles match by defeating Graydon Dunn and Michael Owens (8-2). Mattos and Sukharev have now won four out of their last five doubles matches.
Sukharev, Newberry's top flight singles player, finished the day strong with a win over John Fichardt (6-3, 6-3). Sukharev started the season off with four losses, all against nationally ranked opponents, but has gone 6-3 over the last month. Smith almost completed a perfect day in his third flight win over Hernando Saavedra (6-0, 6-1). The wins from Sukharev and Smith put the team up 5-0, clinching their team's victory.
Sobrinho won his fifth straight singles match by defeating Dunn (6-0, 6-3). In Sobrinho's last four matches, he has not given up more than three points in a single set. Mattos gave the Newberry crowd the most drama of the day in his third set victory over Barry Fichardt. He took the opening set and seemed to be on his way to a quick victory until he gave up a late break in second set. Mattos kept his poise and sealed the third set tiebreaker to win (6-4, 4-6, 10-6).
In his most dominant win of the season, Popovic took down Summer (6-0, 6-1). Since moving to the sixth singles flight, Popovic has played solid tennis with a 3-1 record. Boswell sealed the clean sweep with a three set victory over Owens (6-2, 4-6, 10-6). It was Boswell's first singles victory of the season.
The Newberry College men's tennis team now stands at 6-7 overall and 5-2 in the SAC. They will have a chance to clinch the second seed in the SAC Tournament by defeating Catawba at home this Sunday at 2 pm, a match that was halted in progress this week. NC led Catawba 2-1 before rain postponed the singles portion of the match. Lenoir-Rhyne (6-15, 0-8 in the SAC) will play its final match of the regular season in Greer, S.C. tomorrow against North Greenville at 1 pm.
