MOBILE, Alabama — Loic Didavi, Nikita Soifer and Viktor Svoboda won in doubles and singles Wednesday to lead sixth-ranked Xavier University of Louisiana to a 5-3 men's tennis victory against No. 11 Belhaven in the second round of the NAIA National Championship.
The victory was the fourth in a row for the Gold Rush (15-7), which matched a season high. The XU men have won 12 of their last 15 duals, with all but one of the victories occurring on the road during that period.
Xavier had a first-round bye and was competing for the first time since April 21.
It's the second consecutive year that the Gold Rush reached the quarterfinals. Xavier will play unbeaten, third-seeded and third-ranked Vanguard, a 5-1 winner against Warner, at 9 a.m. Thursday. Prior to 2012, just one team in XU history — coach Bob Hopkins' 1972-73 men's basketball team — had reached the NAIA quarterfinals.
Soifer and Svoboda, winning for the 14th time in their last 15 doubles matches, defeated Jefferson Nino and David Mejia 8-6 at the second flight to tie the dual at 1. Didavi and Kyle Montrel gave Xavier a 2-1 advantage with an 8-2 victory against Nikita Lisov and Andres Yepez at No. 1. Both XU doubles teams have six-match win streaks.
Didavi, announced Monday evening as the ITA NAIA National Senior Player of the Year, gave the Gold Rush a 3-2 lead when he defeated Lisov 6-1, 6-2 at the top singles flight. Enrico Patriarca defeated Xavier's Benjamin Brading 6-1, 6-3 at No. 5 to tie the dual at 3, but the Rush took the lead for good when Svoboda defeated Mejia 6-4, 7-5 at No. 4. Soifer, playing the second flight, ended the dual and recorded his team-leading fifth clinching victory this season with a 6-3, 6-3 decision against Nino.
"This was a good win for us," XU coach Alan Green said. "We hung tough against a good opponent. We played really well in doubles and brought some momentum into the singles matches, then we got off to a good start in singles. We had some tough first sets, but I thought we were better prepared for the heat and were able to wear Belhaven down a bit."
Soifer's singles victory was his first of the season against a ranked opponent. Nino was 32nd and Soifer 17th in the most recent ITA NAIA individual rankings. Svoboda got revenge against Mejia — who beat him in a third-set super-tiebreaker during Xavier's 5-4 home victory Feb. 28 — and won for the 13th time in his last 14 singles matches.
The victory was the Gold Rush's sixth of the season against a ranked NAIA opponent.
Vanguard is 23-0, and the Lions' top two singles players, Stefan Kilchhofer and Roger Muri, are a combined 44-0 this semester. Xavier played at Vanguard each of the past two seasons, winning 6-3 in 2011 and losing 6-3 in 2012.
"It will be a very interesting matchup against an unbeaten team and a top-3 seed," Green said. "We are looking forward to the challenge and to see how we match up."
By Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
No comments:
Post a Comment