ROME, Ga. (JMU Athletics) – No. 6 James Madison took an early lead and forced three singles matches into third sets, but No. 3 Georgia Southern rallied to down the Dukes, 4-2, on Friday afternoon in the Sun Belt Championship Men’s Tennis quarterfinals at the Rome Tennis Center.
The Eagles (11-8) advance to Saturday’s semifinal, while the Dukes (13-8) saw their season come to an end in the teams’ first postseason matchup against each other.
The Dukes captured the doubles point, taking two out of three matches and also got a singles win from Gur Libal, who was the lone player to go 2-0 on the afternoon.
With the match all square at 2-2, the final three singles bouts all went into third sets, but Georgia Southern was able to pull away late in both on courts one and two to clinch the match.
Earlier in the day, JMU took a 1-0 lead after a wild trio of doubles matches. Southern nabbed a 7-5 comeback win on court three, but the Dukes did the same on court one, as Esteve Agusti and Aurelien Schmitt won four straight games to down Gregoire Delattre and Davis Taylor, 7-5.
In the deciding bout, Zach Fleishman and Libal led 5-2, but GS’s Albert Saar and Albert Widell reeled off four straight game wins. Leading 40-30, the Eagles needed one point for the doubles point, but the JMU two staved off both attempts to force a tiebreak. In the breaker, the Dukes won it 7-3 to take the match 7-6 (3) and the 1-0 advantage.
Georgia Southern took its first lead, at 2-1 after claiming straight-set wins on courts three and five. Willy Mirarchi beat Francisco Sinopoli, 6-3, 6-3, before Widell defeated Fleishman, 6-2, 6-3.
Libal evened the match, at 2-2, with his 6-2, 6-2 dominant win on court six versus Taylor, setting up a tight finish.
On court one, Saar won consecutive points to break Agusti’s serve while tied at 4-4 in the third and would hold serve in the ensuing game to earn a 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 win, giving GS a 3-2 lead. A short while later on court two, Delattre was on the positive end of multiple deuce-point winners and he was able to hold off Schmitt by scores of 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Elsewhere, Ryan Morgan lost a tiebreak in the first, but bounced back to take the second, as his match went unfinished in the opening game of the third with Edoardo Santoni (6-7 (5), 6-4, 0-0).
This matchup was nearly identical to the teams’ regular-season showdown, which GS also won 4-2 down in Statesboro, Ga.
— JMU Athletics —
