ORLANDO (April 1, 2017) –The USF men's tennis team saw their first conference loss to UCF, 4-2, in the War on I-4 Saturday.
USF clinched the doubles point, and got off to a slow start in singles as the Knights cleaned up the first set on four courts. Peter Bertran put up a point and helped gain some momentum with a straight-set, 6-4, 7-5, win on court four. After first-set losses, Alberto Barroso-Campos and Vadym Kalyuzhnyy battled to second-set tiebreaks, but only Barroso-Campos would finish the breaker ahead.
UCF posted a singles win on court two over Justin Roberts, and took the lead with wins over Kalyuzhnyy and Jakub Wojcik on five and six. Despite Kalyuzhnyy's comeback from a 5-2 deficit to a 6-5 lead in his second set, he wasn't able to win the tiebreaker. The match came down to Sasha Gozun and Barroso-Campos, and the Bulls would need both courts to clinch the match. Gozun held a lead for most of his third set, but ultimately fell, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5. Barroso-Campos went unfinished.
The Bulls claimed the doubles point with wins on courts one and two. Roberts and Bertran won on court two 6-4, and Gozun and Barroso-Campos clinched the doubles point with a 6-2 victory on court one.
Quotable:
Head Coach Ashley Fisher on the loss...
"Dissapointing loss in the sense that we put ourselves in a position to win the match and just weren't able to execute. I believe we will come away from this loss a better team as it's a wake up call that we need to play aggressively in big moments. We look forward to playing ucf again in the conference championships in two weeks"
Up Next:
The Bulls will travel to Texas for an SMU, TCU road swing April 9-10.
Be sure to follow USF men's tennis on social media (Twitter / Facebook / Instagram) and visit GoUSFBulls.com for the most up-to-date information. Head coach Ashley Fisher will begin his first year at the helm of the program for the 2017 season after serving as an assistant coach in 2016. The USF men's tennis program has won three consecutive American Athletic Conference Championships and advanced to three straight NCAA tournaments.
– #GoBulls –
