Tennis Earns Split at First Home Event

Thursday, November 5

Phoenix, Ariz.

10 a.m.

Grand Canyon

UC Irvine

Photo by: Darryl Webb

11/5/2015 9:29:00 PM | Men's Tennis

PHOENIX – The Grand Canyon University men's tennis team hosted UC Irvine and Southern Utah today out at Paseo Racquet Center. They won their match over Southern Utah 6-0, but fell just short against UC Irvine 4-3.

"It was great to get to play a couple of dual matches in the fall," said head coach Greg Prudhomme. "It's unique to be able to do that and we were able to work out a couple of things that normally we don't get to until January."

In the morning match against UC Irvine, Grand Canyon earned the doubles point. At the number one slot, Mitch Maroscher and Adrian Legarreta won 7-5, while Felix Schueller and Alexander Roggenkamp won 6-4 at number two.

"The guys nearly pulled off one of their best wins up-to-date in DI," explained Prudhomme. "We lost by one match 4-3 to UC Irvine who have won their conference championships five out of the last seven years and have been to the NCAA. The guys are showing where there level has come in the last few years. For the first duel match of the season to be that close, is a good sign for us."

In singles, Legarreta won his match over Justin Agbayani 6-3, 6-1. Gregoire Balenci picked up the last point with his 6-3, 6-3 win over Jonathan Hammel.

"It's certainly hard to lose that close and we wish we would have crossed that line, but we learned a lot from the things we did well and the things that we can improve on," said Prudhomme.

The Lopes swept the singles matches against Southern Utah and did not compete in doubles. During the match, the squad only gave up a total of 11 games and they had five sets that were shutouts.

"We came right back later in the afternoon and took care of Southern Utah by winning all of the singles," continued Prudhomme. "It was a great day and we've got three more days of tennis this weekend. It's our last competition of the fall to make sure that we're doing everything as well as we can to start things up in January."

Both the men's and women's squads will be opening their fall tournament tomorrow beginning at 9:30 a.m. Fans are welcome to attend the competition at Paseo Racquet Center. A full recap of each day will be available at www.gculopes.com.