Jacksonville State def. Belmont 4-3 Box Score
On Saturday, Jacksonville State beat Belmont to win the 2014 OVC Men’s Tennis Championship in Paducah, Ky. The #1 seed Gamecocks defeated the #2 seed Bruins 4-3 to win their first OVC Tennis Title since 2009. For the fourth time in the past decade, Jacksonville State is crowned OVC tournament champions after winning it’s first championship in 2005.
Jacksonville State jumped out to an early, 1-0 lead after taking the doubles point over Belmont by winning at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles. Doubles play started with the Gamecocks victory at No. 3 doubles as the duo of Jeff Wendler-Filho and Felipe Wenzel beat the Bruins’ Hans Nardelli and Martijn Verberne, 8-5. At No. 1 doubles, Mauricio Antun and Marko Lovrinovic of Belmont defeated Jacksonville States’ Jaryd Reese and Pedro Wagner, 8-6. The doubles point came down to a No. 2 doubles tiebreaker that resulted in the Gamecocks’ Mathias Chaim and Dylan Gee defeating Belmont’s Cedric Dujacquier and Henrik Claesson (8-7), 7-4 in the tiebreaker.
In singles action, the Gamecocks took the three bottom matches of the singles lineup while Belmont took the top three matches of the lineup. At No. 1 singles, Mauricio Antun of Belmont beat Jacksonville State’s Pedro Wagner (7-6 (5), 6-1) while teammate, Marko Lovrinovic defeated Jaryd Reese of Jacksonville State (6-4, 7-6 (1)) at the No. 2 spot. Cedric Dujacquier of Belmont took No. 3 singles, as he defeated Jacksonville State’s Dylan Gee (6-1, 6-4). At the No. 4 position, the Gamecocks’ Jeff Wendler-Filho beat the Bruins’ Hans Nardelli (6-1, 6-2). No. 5 singles was won by Jacksonville State as Mathias Chaim defeated Henrik Claesson of Belmont (6-2, 7-5). The championship match came down to No. 6 singles, where Jacksonville State’s Felipe Wenzel battled back from losing the first set to Belmont’s Martijn Verberne and took the final two sets for the victory (6-7 (5), 6-0, 6-0) to clinch the OVC title.
With the championship win, Jacksonville State will receive an automatic bid into the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship tournament. Jacksonville State will learn of it’s opponent and the location of the first round match on Tuesday, April 29th, at 4 p.m. CST which will be broadcast live on NCAA.com.