CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL PAGE
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. – The tournament’s top two seeds will meet for the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Men’s Tennis Championship on Saturday. No. 1 Georgia State and No. 2 South Alabama each won their semifinal matches handily on Friday at the Peachtree City Tennis Center.
Georgia State, the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Regular-Season Champion, defeated fifth-seeded Troy, 4-1, in Friday’s first semifinal. Second-seeded South Alabama then swept sixth-seeded UTA, 4-0, in the second match of the day.
Saturday’s Sun Belt Conference Men’s Tennis Championship is slated for 1 p.m. ET start and the match will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
Match 4: (1) Georgia State 4, (5) Troy 1
Box Score
Georgia State, the nation’s 63rd-ranked team, quickly earned the doubles point and clinched the match at No. 4 singles to capture a 4-1 victory against fifth-seeded Troy on Friday.
Georgia State (16-7) got doubles victories from the duos of Patrick Lazo / Diego Padilha (6-1) at court three and Harvey Maughan / Kevin Huynh (6-4) at court two to jump out to the early advantage.
In singles action, Vazha Shubladze gave the Panthers a 2-0 advantage after defeating Troy’s Nicolas Simkin, 6-1, 6-0, at No. 3 singles.
Troy (16-10) earned its lone point of the match when 2022 First-Team All-Sun Belt Conference selection Carles Anton beat Georgia State’s Second-Team All-Sun Belt selection Roberts Grinvalds , 6-4, 6-2, at court two.
Georgia State’s First-Team All-Sun Belt honoree Andrei Duarte claimed a pair of 6-3 victories against Troy’s Pelayo Antuna. The match was clinched at No. 4 singles when Kevin Huynh charted a 6-4, 6-3 win against Nicolas Simkin.
Match 5: (2) South Alabama 4, (6) UTA 0
Box Score
Second-seeded South Alabama cruised to a 4-0 victory against sixth-seeded UTA in Friday’s second Sun Belt Conference Semifinal.
The doubles point was quickly claimed by the Jaguars (17-6) as the duos of Sébastien Collard / Maxime St-Hilaire (6-1) and Martin Bugaj / Javier Montoya (6-2) earned victories over their opponents from UTA (13-12). The third doubles match went unfinished.
No. 5 singles was the first to finish with Bugaj defeating Maks Lukman, 6-3, 6-2. Sébastien Collard, the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year, beat UTA’s First-Team All-Sun Belt selection Alan Sau Franco, 7-6 (4), 6-0.
The match was clinched at No. 6 singles where Montoya won 6-4, 6-4 against the Mavs’ Daichi Akiyoshi.