ROCK HILL, S.C. – Winthrop men's tennis (7-6, 4-0 Big South) stayed undefeated in conference play with a 6-1 victory over Campbell (9-5, 3-1 Big South) Sunday afternoon at Rock Hill Tennis Center. The win leaves Winthrop and Liberty as the lone remaining unbeatens in Big South matches.
HOW IT HAPPENED
-The Eagles took the doubles point for the third-straight match and seventh time overall this season, taking courts one and three to clinch the point.
-In singles play,
Diego Quiroz set the tone quickly on court one with a decisive 6-0 first set. He would trail only briefly in the second set, down a break at 3-4, before battling back to win 6-4 on serve and secure the match victory.
-Only a few minutes after Quiroz's victory,
Tremayne Mitchell would stretch the Eagles lead to 3-0 with a straight-set victory on court two, his first appearance at No. 2 this season.
-With only one more point needed to clinch, the decisions on courts three, four, five and six still hung in the balance, but the Eagles were down first sets on three, five and six, leaving
Connor Williamson on four in the best position after a 6-3 first set win. Williamson was up 3-0 in the second, but Campbell's Lukas Schaefer began climbing back. Williamson found himself up just a slim 5-4 with the opportunity to clinch the match on serve and came through as Schaefer's return went long on match point.
-Despite team victory assured, the Eagles weren't done battling.
Joshua Ryan regrouped after dropping his first set 4-6 to dominate the second set 6-1 and hang on for a back-and-forth tiebreak win in the third set. At No. 5,
Gabriel Dias followed up his heroics against Coastal with another marathon match, coming back from down 1-4 in the second set to tie the match at 4-4 and then go on to win a set tiebreak and the super tiebreak for the match.
QUOTABLE
"We have a group of guys who are committed to competing the right way," said head coach
John Collins. "Today I thought we were so resilient. Resilience for us is recovering quickly from difficulties and to be tough and I thought we did that perfectly today."
NOTABLES
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Tremayne Mitchell won his seventh-straight singles match, his team-leading 10
th singles victory on the season.
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Gabriel Dias and
Joshua Ryan improved to 8-0 at doubles court three, maintaining their league-best record in the Big South Conference at the third position.
-Since dropping a tough 6-0 loss to Ga. Southern on Feb. 25, Winthrop has won six of seven over the past month, including its 4-0 start to Big South play.
UP NEXT
The Eagles are back on the road to take on Appalachian State on Sun., Apr. 1 at 1 p.m. The next conference match is on the road at Radford on Tues., Apr. 3 at 2 p.m.
FULL RESULTS
Singles
1. QUIROZ, Diego (WIN) def. LABIK, Ondrej (CAM) 6-0, 6-4
2. MITCHELL, Tremayne (WIN) def. SCHWAB, Lorenz (CAM) 6-3, 6-0
3. WERNER, Dustin (CAM) def. PAPPAYIANNIS, L. (WIN) 6-2, 6-4
4. WILLIAMSON, Connor (WIN) def. SCHAEFER, Lukas (CAM) 6-3, 6-4
5. DIAS, Gabriel (WIN) def. SOLA, Gerard (CAM) 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 1-0 (10-5)
6. RYAN, Joshua (WIN) def. WILLIAMS, Ted (CAM) 4-6, 6-1, 7-6
Doubles
1. QUIROZ, Diego/MITCHELL, Tremayne (WIN) def. SCHWAB, Lorenz/WERNER, Dustin (CAM) 6-2
2. SOLA, Gerard/O'NEAL, Jonathan (CAM) def. WILLIAMSON, Connor/GOKHALE, Aditya (WIN) 6-4
3. DIAS, Gabriel/RYAN, Joshua (WIN) def. SCHAEFER, Lukas/MONTEROSSO, Louis (CAM) 6-2
WATCH
