The battle-tested Stetson men's tennis team broke through with its first win of the 2007 season Saturday against Tennessee Tech. The Hatters 6-1 victory included a sweep of the three doubles competitions and a perfect singles match from Hicham Laalej.
“The players finally were rewarded for their hard work today,” said head coach Pierre Pilote. “We were one point away from winning the doubles point in both the USF and South Alabama matches, two of the best teams in the nations, and today we put everything together.”
The Hatters opened the morning with a clean sweep of the doubles matches to take the day's first point. Marcus Echlter and Filip Kricka improved to 3-1 on the year with an 8-3 victory over TTU's Tiago Gilioli and Louis Steyn. Serguei Boulanov and Joey Jones were 8-6 winners and Peter Dzuba and Hicham Laalej claimed their first doubles win of the season, 8-3.
Echtler defeated Gilioli in the #1 singles competition in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4. The most impressive victory went to Laalej in the #4 match, as he took out Alexander Ilyakhian, 6-0, 6-0. Jones completed an unbeaten weekend with a 7-5, 7-6 victory over Steyn.
Stetson improved to 1-4 with the win.
“We are playing the best schedule in the program's history and the team score does not reflect how close are to those teams,” said Pilote. “Tennessee Tech beat us 4-3 last year and the 6-1 win today shows how much better we are this year.”
Next up for Stetson is a road match at Bethune-Cookman Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 pm.
Results
Stetson University vs Tennessee Tech University
2/3/2007 at Mobile, Ala.
Stetson University 6, Tennessee Tech University 1
Singles competition
1. #61 ECHTLER, Marcus (STET) def. GILIOLI, Tiago (TTU) 6-4, 6-4
2. ZARCO, Borja (TTU) def. BOULANOV, Serguei (STET) 6-2, 6-4
3. KRICKA, Filip (STET) def. GOMEZ, Juan (TTU) 7-5, 6-3
4. LAALEJ, Hicham (STET) def. ILYAKHIAN, Alexander (TTU) 6-0, 6-0
5. JONES, Joey (STET) def. STEYN, Louis (TTU) 7-5, 7-6
6. DZUBA, Peter (STET) def. HUBERT, Mitchell (TTU) 6-0, 6-2
Doubles competition
1. ECHTLER, Marcus/KRICKA, Filip (STET) def. GILIOLI, Tiago/STEYN, Louis (TTU) 8-3
2. BOULANOV, Serguei/JONES, Joey (STET) def. ZARCO, Borja/BENNETT, James (TTU) 8-6
3. DZUBA, Peter/LAALEJ, Hicham (STET) def. GOMEZ, Juan/ILYAKHIAN, Alexander (TTU) 8-3
Match Notes:
Stetson University 1-4
Tennessee Tech University 0-4
