Men’s tennis finishes strong in weekend tournament

Macy Holloway

The men’s tennis team brought home some outstanding wins this weekend after playing in Georgia State University’s Invitational despite all of the Saturday matches getting rained out.

On Friday, sophomore Rayane Djouad and senior Oliver Webb partnered up to beat the 58th ranked team in the country from Georgia State, a great way to end an impressive day of wins for the Eagles.

“That was a really good win for us, so hopefully we can continue that form for the next couple of tournaments,” Webb said.

Earlier that day, Djouad also defeated Georgia State’s Thomas Cook with an outstanding performance, winning 2-6, 6-2 and 6-3.

Junior Albert Codina-Sala had already picked up three wins, one singles and two doubles matches with partner sophomore Rafael Racy on Friday before defeating University of South Alabama’s Juan Troglia, making for an eventful match resulting in a score of 2-6, 6-3 and 10-6 for the win on Sunday.

Racy also prevailed on Sunday with a win against South Alabama’s Sean Robinson, the overall score being a close 7-5, 6-4.

Sunday undoubtedly proved to be a day of remarkable singles matches for the Eagles, resulting in a bad day for the South Alabama Jaguars.

Webb defeated the Jaguars’ Manuel Belda 6-3, 6-4 for the win to start off his Sunday. Junior Daniel Rush defeated South Alabama’s Jan Hellmich 6-2, 4-6, 6-10 and shortly after GSU freshman Christian Kerrigan beat Sebastian Kirmse with an impressive score of 6-0, 7-5.

“Overall on singles the team did a really good job, there were a couple of really tight matches and a couple of wins, but overall it went well,” Webb said.

Codina-Sala came out on top this weekend with a total of two singles wins and two doubles wins.

Coach Nick Zieziula said, “We showed some progress through the weekend in our doubles movement, but we have to be much more disciplined from start to finish in every spot in the line-up. We have two weeks to prepare for our home tournament and we need to make the most of that preparation time.”

Men’s tennis will be hosting the Georgia Southern Championships on October 4-6 at the Hanner Tennis Complex.