GCU remains hot, sweeps UTRGV

Friday, March 30

Kansas City, Mo.

7:00 A.M.

Grand Canyon

UTRGV

Photo by: Travis Neely

3/30/2018 1:27:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Jerob Moon

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—The Grand Canyon men's tennis team earned their second straight shutout in the WAC by defeating UTRGV 7-0 early Saturday morning. The team has now won seven matches in a row, and shutout the Vaqueros for the second straight year.

"The guys played really well, earning their second straight 7-0 win," head coach Greg Prudhomme said. "The guys kept the momentum rolling, they did a great job earning the doubles point to start the match. In singles they got off to a great start and stayed on top, stretched their leads, and finished quickly. It was a good clean performance by the whole team today."

The Lopes struck quickly in the match that lasted a little over an hour. In doubles Mathieu Rajaonah and Lorenzo Fucile dominated at court one winning 6-1 while the other two matches were competitive. Lucas Grego and Freddie Grant at No. 2 clinched the doubles point for GCU winning their match 7-5, and senior Gregoire Balenci and Justin Cvitanovic won the final match in tiebreakers 7-6 (5).

It was much of the same in singles, as GCU took the first set on five of the six courts. Fucile jumped out to a quick lead at position two winning comfortably 6-4, 6-1. Grego extended his winning streak to double digits winning at No. 4 in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. Only once during his 10 match winning streak has Grego gone to a third set, all other wins have been straight set victories.

Balenci who has been playing at No. 3 with Valentin Lang out of the lineup won his second straight match of the weekend, and clinched the win for GCU. Cvitanovic and Grant added to the total with two more straight set wins, and Rajaonah after losing the first set won 3-6, 6-3, 10-7.

The final match in the cluster for GCU will be against host school UMKC. In their first conference match the Roos defeated Chicago State 4-1 and have a matchup with Seattle U today before taking on the Lopes tomorrow at 8 a.m.