Wednesday, March 30, 2005

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Mar. 30, 2005) - The Buccaneer men's tennis team dropped the Winthop Eagles, 6-1 in a Wednesday afternoon contest on the ETSU tennis courts. East Tennessee State is now 13-3 overall earning their 11th straight victory, while Winthrop drops to 14-4.

"A lot of things turned our way in this match," said Head Coach Yaser Zaatini. "Neither Assistant Coach Ivan Fernandez nor myself expected us to win 6-1 today. Winthrop is a strong team, they played a strong 4-3 match against Clemson and defeated ODU."

Felix Insaurralde (Asunción, Paraguay) and Lisandro Picardo (Mar del Plata, Argentina) picked up the first doubles win over Vinicius Bortolatto and Rodrigo Santos, 8-4. Moisés Serrano (Cartagena, Colombia) and Sebastian Serrano (Cartagena, Colombia) then won the doubles point for ETSU with a 8-3 win at No. 3 over Alejandro Portugal and Thiago Barbosa. Attention would then focus to court number one where Oscar Posada (Valencia, Venezuela) and Fernando Fiuri (Villa Maria, Argentina) fell in a tough 9-8 battle to Clayton Almeida and Jorge Padilla.

The Eagles would start off singles with a win from Bortolatto at No. 2 over Fiuri (6-1, 6-3), but the Bucs would take the other five positions for the win. ETSU wins came from Picardo at No. 5 (7-5, 6-1), S. Serrano at No. 6 (6-3, 6-4), Posada at No. 1 (6-3, 3-6, 6-1), M. Serrano at No. 4 (2-6, 6-4, 6-2), and Insaurralde at No. 3 (5-7, 5-4, retired injury).

"Overall it was a great team performance today and we showed that even if one guy doesn't have a great day that the guys can stick together and play as a team to win it," stated Zaatini.

The Bucs, whoare 6-0 in the SoCon, return to conference action this weekend as they travel to face UNC Greensboro on Saturday, April 2 at 1:00 p.m. and then Elon on Sunday, April 3 at noon.

ETSU 6, Winthrop 1

Doubles

1.  Almeida/Padilla (WU) d. Posada/Fiuri (ETSU) 9-8

2.  Insaurralde/Picardo (ETSU) d. Bortolatto/Santos (WU) 8-4

3.  M. Serrano/S.Serrano (ETSU) d. Portugal/Barbosa (WU) 8-3

Order: 2, 3, 1

Singles

1.  Oscar Posada (ETSU) d. Clayton Almeida (WU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-1  

2.  Vinicius Bortolatto (WU) d. Fernando Fiuri (ETSU) 6-1, 6-3

3.  Felix Insaurralde (ETSU) d. Rodrigo Santos (WU) 5-7, 5-4, retired injury

4.  Moisés Serrano (ETSU) d. Alejandro Portugal (WU) 2-6, 6-4, 6-2

5.  Lisandro Picardo (ETSU) d. Jorge Padilla (WU) 7-5, 6-1

6.  Sebastian Serrano (ETSU) d. Thiago Barbosa (WU) 6-3, 6-4

Order: 2, 5, 6, 1*, 4, 3

*-Clinching Point