St. Augustine, Fla. - The Stetson men's tennis team improved to 2-0 on the season with a 6-1 win over host Flagler (1-1) Tuesday afternoon at the Flagler Tennis Center. Three Hatters earned singles and doubles wins against a Saints squad ranked 12th nationally in NCAA Division II.

Stetson began the day with a hard-fought doubles point win. Senior Maksim Levanovich (Minsk, Belarus) and freshman Chester Espie (Auckland, New Zealand) rolled past Peter Coulis and Uriel Oquendo 8-2 on Court 2, but it was the work of sophomore Hans Adrian Riseng (Oslo, Norway) and freshman Nathan Debut (Toulon, France) on Court 3 that locked up the point, battling to a 9-7 win over Stephan Stolz and Skyler Engel.

In singles play, the Hatters took five of the six matches in straight sets to lock down the 6-1 victory. Levanovich defeated Coulis 6-1, 6-1 on Court 1 and Espie took care of Adam Hunt 6-1, 6-2 on Court 5 in clean fashion for Stetson's second and third points. Riseng, junior Didrik Berg (Oslo, Norway) and freshman Jacobo Herrero (Madrid, Spain) did the rest on Courts 4 (6-2, 6-2), 3 (6-2, 6-4) and 6 (7-5, 6-2) respectively. Jose Martinez earned Flagler's lone point at #2 singles.

The Hatters travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas for a pair of matches this weekend. Stetson battles Oral Roberts at a time to be determined Saturday before battling the host Arkansas Razorbacks at 3:00 pm ET (2:00 pm local CT) Sunday.

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