Jacksonville, Fla. ? The 69th-ranked Stetson men's tennis team (9-3, 3-0 Atlantic Sun) picked up its third straight win with a 4-3 road victory over North Florida (5-3, 1-1 A-Sun) Sunday afternoon. Freshman Maksim Levanovich (Minsk, Belarus) was a double winner and earned the match-clinching singles point for the Hatters.
Levanovich and senior Filip Kricka (Umag, Croatia) teamed up to defeat Kurt Gattiker and Marcos Chiaretti 8-3 at #2 doubles to get things rolling for Stetson; the Hatters picked up the doubles point when freshman Njal Stene (Oslo, Norway) and sophomore Chris Swanteson (Vaxjo, Sweden) picked up an 8-5 win over Marc Misanovic' and Federico Levi in the #1 slot.
The Hatters and Ospreys split the six singles matches down the middle; Stetson earned the team victory in the final match of the day when Levanovich outlasted Misanovic' 6-7, 7-5, 6-3 in three sets at #3 singles. Other singles winners for Stetson were junior Mark Mestan (Cologne, Germany) and freshman Cesare Gallo (Portogruaro, Italy), who earned three-set wins over Ronnie Sang and Gattiker, respectively.
Stetson returns home to the Mandy Stoll Tennis Center to host Eastern Kentucky at 2 p.m. Tuesday. The match with the Colonels is the opening act of a tennis doubleheader; the Hatter and EKU women take the courts at 5 p.m.
