Wednesday, March 10, 2010

DeLAND, Fla. (March 9, 2010) – After being down most of the  match, the No. 59 ETSU men's tennis team dug deep Tuesday morning defeating No. 48 UNC Wilmington 4-3 at the Stetson University Tennis Courts in DeLand, Fla.

With the comeback win ETSU has won three straight contests to improve its overall record to 5-6, while the Seahawks – who have dropped their last three matches – fell to 7-4.

Since I’ve been at ETSU we've lost some close heartbreaking matches over the years so it's nice today to come out on the other side of things,” said head coach Yaser Zaatini. “Early on Wilmington came out strong, which put us in a tough spot, but guys like Grega and Danny simply didn't allow our team to give up and lose.

As play began ETSU found itself down quickly after the Seahawks took two out of three doubles matches.

Wilmington did a great job playing hard and fast in doubles,” said Zaatini. "They are also a defending conference champion so our guys knew after dropping that point that we had to start putting some shots together to stay in the match.

As singles play opened the Seahawks extend their advantage to 2-0 as Michael Pereira dismissed sophomore Sander Gille (Kuringen, Belgium) in straight sets 6-3, 6-2.

ETSU finally got on the board as freshman Jesus Bandres (Caracas, Venezuela) earned a 7-6 (10-8), 6-3 victory over Illia Ziamtsou at No. 4. After Bandres finished fellow classmate Juan-Carlos Ramirez (Asuncion, Paraguay) tied the match at 2-2 with his close 7-6 (11-9), 6-4 win.

The key for Jesus and Juan-Carlos was their ability to win their first set tiebreakers,” said Zaatini. “With us already standing two points down Wilmington could have closed out the win right their if they didn't find a way to to get some points. That really got us going the rest of the match.