PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. – South Alabama, UTA and Troy all earned hard-fought quarterfinal victories on Thursday in the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Men’s Tennis Championship at the Peachtree City Tennis Center. Each have advanced to the event’s semifinal round to be contested on Friday.
Thursday’s thrilling competition featured two upset wins by lower-seeded teams (fifth-seeded Troy and sixth-seeded UTA) and a down-to-the-wire victory by second-seeded South Alabama against seventh-seeded Georgia Southern.
In Friday’s first semifinal, 2022 Sun Belt Conference regular-season champion and the tournament’s top seed Georgia State will face fifth-seeded Troy at 10 a.m. ET. In the second semifinal match-up, second-seeded South Alabama will play sixth-seeded UTA at 2 p.m. ET. Both matches will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
Match 1: (5) Troy 4, (4) Coastal Carolina 1
Box Score
Fifth-seeded Troy rallied after losing the doubles point to defeat fourth-seeded Coastal Carolina 4-1 in the first match of the day on Friday.
Coastal Carolina (10-11) picked up a pair of doubles points as the duos of Diego Giraldo / Steve Mundt and Daiki Tanabe and Federico Garnier won on courts one and three, respectively.
Troy (16-9) then swept the singles competition with four consecutive victories. First at court four, Noah Martens downed Tanabe, 6-3, 7-6 (5). Then at court six, Christopher Tasker defeated Mundt, 7-5, 6-4. Nicolas Simkin won at No. 3 singles, beating Giraldo, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
First-Team All-Sun Belt Conference selection Carles Anton clinched the match for the Trojans with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory at No. 2 singles. In the final set, Anton trailed 4-2 before fighting back to earn the victory for his team.
Impressively, the match concluded with the Trojans winning deuce points in their final three singles contests.
Match 2: (6) UTA 4, (3) Louisiana 2
Box Score
Sixth-seeded UTA pulled off an impressive comeback in doubles and then won at No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 singles to defeat third-seeded Louisiana, 4-2.
The Mavs (13-11) dropped the first doubles match before Maks Lukman and Daichi Akiyoshi defeated the Louisiana pair of Oriol Fillat Gimenez and Calin Postea, 6-4. At No. 2 doubles, the UTA pair of Solano Caffarena and Alan Sau Franco trailed 5-4 before running off three consecutive points to win 7-5 and clinch the doubles point for their team.
Louisiana (17-6) earned convincing wins at No. 6 and No. 5 doubles as Alejo Ferrer Chueca and Vasil Dimitrov claimed straight-set victories.
UTA’s Solano won at No. 4 singles, 6-3, 7-5, to knot the match at 2-2.
UTA’s First-Team All-Sun Belt selection Alan Sau Franco beat Louisiana’s Alejandro Sanchez Gonzalez, 7-5, 6-4, at No. 1 singles. The match was clinched at No. 3 singles when the Mavs’ Anton Shepp won a three-set affair against the Ragin’ Cajuns’ Calin Postea, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3.
Match 3: (2) South Alabama 4, (7) Georgia Southern 3
Box Score
In a match that featured more than its fair share of twists and turns, it came down to 2022 Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year Sébastien Collard to secure a 4-3 victory for second-seeded South Alabama against seventh-seeded Georgia Southern.
South Alabama (16-6) claimed the doubles point in the match to take an early 1-0 advantage after wins by the duos of Jack Clements / Louis Delcour and Martin Bugaj / Javier Montoya.
Georgia Southern (7-11) was on fire to start singles play, winning its first three matches. Laurent Julia Calac defeated Javier Montoya (6-4, 7-5), Valentin Dun downed Martin Bugaj (6-4, 6-1) and Dimitris Paliouras downed Maxime St-Hilaire (6-1, 7-5).
South Alabama rallied to win at No. 2 and No. 3 singles. Jack Clements beat Alexandros Roumpis (6-2, 7-6 [3]) and Louis Delcour defeated Tao Castillo (6-3, 2-6, 6-2). That tied the match at 3-3.
The match came down to court one where Collard won the first set 6-4 and Pol del Castillo claimed the second set 6-2. Collard held a 5-2 advantage early in the third set and clinched the match with a dramatic 6-3 third-set victory.