ROCK HILL, SC—The Winthrop Eagles men's tennis team took down the USC-Upstate Spartans 4-3 at the Winthrop Memorial Tennis Courts in their home opener on Friday afternoon.

The match began with the Eagles falling behind in the doubles competition.  Winthrop's No. 1 doubles pairing of Dylan Comerford and Peter Nagovnak fell to Ramon Simonetti and Jamie Yates 8-4.  Tremayne Mitchell and Steven Patrick downed Viktor Selander and Rajanvir Dharni 8-4 at the No. 2 spot.  No 3. Ruben Franzanti and Michael Chen lost a heartbreaker 8-7(5) to Upstate's Matt Bennion and Felix Ewers.

Singles play started with No. 1 Mitchell and Simonetti going to three sets, with Simonetti getting the best of Mitchell, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.  No. 2 singles saw Comerford topping Selander 6-1, 6-4.  At the No. 3 position, Nagovnak lost 6-4, 6-2 to the Spartans' Yates.  The Eagles' No. 4 Patrick fought back after dropping the first set to Dharni and came out victorious 1-6, 6-3, 6-1.  Franzanti bested Upstate's Ignacio Garrido 7-6, 6-4 at the No. 5 spot.  The match was clinched with the No. 6 position being the decisive factor.  The Eagles' Chen came out on top 7-5, 6-2 over Bennion.

Winthrop's head coach Sergey Belov was pleased with his team's performance.  "This was a good win for our team.  After losing the doubles point our guys came out with a lot of energy and fought very hard to win this match," Belov stated.  "We put forth great effort and we're looking forward to our next match."

The Eagles, 2-1, will travel to face the College of Charleston Cougars Sunday, Feb. 8.