TAMPA- The University of South Florida men's tennis team competed in its first dual match of the 2010 season on Tuesday against Florida Gulf Coast University and handed the Eagles a 6-1 loss.
Sophomore's Yannick Yoshizawa and Alex Pukal picked up the Bulls' first doubles win of the day in their flight three doubles match against Steve Binninger and Collin Brown. Yoshizawa and Pukal topped Binninger and Brown 8-3.
Sophomore Mark Oljaca and Junior Jamal Adderley picked up the doubles point for USF in their flight two doubles match against Sebastian Leitz and Mitchell Lvovsky. Oljaca and Adderley took down Leitz and Lvovsky 8-2 and the win gave the Bulls the 1-0 advantage heading into singles matches.
Senior Thomas Estrada and junior Romain Deridder also competed in doubles for the Bulls on Tuesday in the flight one doubles spot against Thibaud Aime and Matthew Rock. This was a back-and-forth match between the teams with the contest coming right down to the very end. Estrada and Deridder ended up falling to Aime and Rock 8-7 for the first loss of the afternoon.
USF continued to dominate FGCU in the singles competition. Pukal picked up the first singles point for the Bulls in his match against Brown. Pukal dropped Brown in two sets 6-0, 6-0.
Yoshizawa kept things rolling for USF in his match against Binninger. Yoshizawa picked up the Bulls third point of the day after dropping Binninger 6-0, 6-0.
Oljaca sealed the deal for USF in his match against Rock. Oljaca and Rock battled hard against each other during their match but it would be Oljaca who would leave with the 6-3, 6-1 win. Oljaca's win gave USF the fourth and final point that they needed to secure the win against FGCU.
Estrada and Deridder also picked up singles wins for the Bulls. Estrada competed against Lvovsky in the flight four singles spot. Estrada rolled past Lvovsky in two sets 6-2, 6-3. Deridder competed against Leitz in the flight three singles match winning the first set 6-4. Deridder would fall behind in the second set 5-4 but he would come back and win 7-5.
Adderley also competed in singles action against Aime in flight one. Aime would beat Adderley in the first set 6-0, but Adderley fought back in the second set and won the set 6-4. That sent the match into a tiebreaker set where both players continued to fight hard for the win. Adderley ended up falling to Aime in the tiebreaker set 10-8.
The Bulls will be back in action on Saturday, Jan. 23, when they travel to Oklahoma to take on No. 34 Tulsa. Competition is set to start at 6:00 p.m.
