Box Score
WILLIAMSBURG, VA – The Winthrop men's tennis team dropped its 2011 season opener 6-1 to the 75th-ranked William & Mary Tribe on Thursday morning at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center.
"Athough we did not have the amount of preparation needed for this match due to the weather, I am proud of the way the team competed against a ranked William and Mary team," said head coach Cid Carvalho. "We will continue to improve going forward."
Winthrop (0-1) started the match from behind as it dropped the doubles point to the Tribe (1-0). In the No.1 doubles match, Sergey Belov and Yuta Hirokawa fell to Sebastien Vidal and Jamie Whiteford 8-4. Guy Kubi and Liran Levy were edged in their No. 2 doubles match to Anton Andersson and Ilja Orre 8-6. Playing at No. 3 doubles, Dejon Bivens and Nadav Ruppin were also defeated by Ben Guthrie and Adrian Vodislav 8-6.
In singles play, Bivens was the only Eagle to earn a point as he took down Guthrie 6-4, 6-3 in No. 2 singles. Playing in the No. 1 singles match, Belov battled Andersson tough by splitting the first two sets, but would fall in the tiebreaker 6-4, 6-7, 13-11. Kubi also took his opponent, Ben Hoogland, to the tiebreaking set in the No. 5 singles match, but was defeated 6-1, 4-6, 10-5.
Levy, Ruppin and Hirokawa all lost in their respective singles matches in straight sets. Levy, playing at No. 3 singles, fell 6-1, 6-2 to Vidal, while Ruppin was defeated by Whiteford in the No. 4 singles match 6-2, 6-2. Hirokawa lost his No. 6 singles match to Vodislav 6-1, 6-2.
Winthrop will open its home campaign on Saturday, Jan. 15 against the Hampton Pirates. The match is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m.
