Xavier's Didavi, Richardson reach singles finals at HBCU event

JONESBORO, Ga. — Xavier University of Louisiana's Loic Didavi and Sean Richardson won men's singles semifinal matches Friday in the HBCU National Tennis Championships.

Didavi, the No. 3 seed in the A-flight, defeated Florida A&M's top-seeded Salif Kante 7-5, 7-5 and will play FAMU's second-seeded Levan Clark for the championship. Clark defeated Xavier's Zach Taylor 6-2, 6-3 in the other semifinal.

Richardson, unseeded in the C-flight, beat Hampton's Kenneth Greene 6-1, 6-2 in a match suspended Thursday, then defeated North Carolina Central's Fabrice George 6-2, 6-3. Richardson will play FAMU's top-seeded Temuera Asafu-Adjaye for the title.

Asafu-Adjaye beat Xavier's Viktor Svoboda 6-1, 6-4 in the other semifinal. Svoboda got there with a 6-2, 6-2 victory against Alcorn State's Maxim Tkanchenko in a match suspended Thursday.

Didavi and Taylor, seeded second in men's A-doubles, reached the semifinals with an 8-1 victory against Hampton's Advait Kitane and Lakshmana Satchithananthan. They'll play Alcorn's fourth-seeded Enresti Santillian and Winfried Weinbeer.

Richardson and Steffen Giles-Osborn, seeded second in men's B-doubles, beat James Pressley and Nate Sinckler of Morehouse 8-1 to reach the semifinals, where they'll face FAMU's fourth-seeded Asafu-Adjaye and Fabrice Myrtil.

XU's Kourtney Howell, seeded fourth in women's A-singles, defeated FAMU's Britney Dean 6-1, 6-3 and will play Southern's second-seeded Carlista Mohammed in the semifinals. XU women eliminated in the quarterfinals were Amanda Materre and Amber Brown in the B-flight and Jordyn Goody in C.

Brown, a No. 1 seed, lost 7-5, 6-2 to Prairie View A&M's Christine Gwodog in the round of 16.

Howell and Nicole DeLoach, seeded second in women's A-doubles, beat Prairie View's Alejandra Barrera and Brittany Harrell 8-6 to reach the semifinals. Goody and Brown upset FAMU's second-seeded Kathline Durden and Stephanie Miller 8-6 but lost to Bethune-Cookman's Shereen Peterson-Paul and Stacey Speller 8-4 in the B-doubles quarterfinals.

XU's Amir Rahbar lost 6-3, 6-1 in the semifinals of men's B-singles to FAMU's second-seeded Takura Happy.

By Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
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