Owls Shutout St. Francis Brooklyn, 7-0

WRITTEN BY: JIMMY WILLIAMSON

Temple’s men’s tennis team cruised to a 7-0 victory over St. Francis Brooklyn on Saturday. This is the team’s third straight win and second straight shutout.

In the early match action, the Owls were able to walk away with victories at both doubles flights in impressive fashion. At the first flight, the freshman pairing of Uladzimir Dorash and Florian Miller easily took care of St. Francis’ duo of Zurab Tskhakais and Milos Vukicevic 8-0. The match was Dorash and Miller’s to lose from the opening serve. At the second doubles flight, Vineet Naran and Hicham Belkssir earned an 8-4 win over Martin Bedecarratz and Sacha Singh. Both wins were each duo’s second straight as a pair.

The men’s team looked even more impressive in singles play, winning all of their matches in straight sets, including three shutouts. Ian Glessing got the ball rolling for the Owls picking up a 6-0, 6-0 shutout win at the fifth flight over Michael Sparacino. Next followed Filip Stipcic, who shutout Sacha Signh at the fourth flight 6-0, 6-0. Artem Kapshuk then followed, shutting out Zurab Tskhakaia 6-0, 6-0 at the second flight. Head coach Steve Mauro thought Kapshuk had a really strong showing at #2 singles.

Although Nicolas Paulus and Santiago Canete were the only Owls not to shutout their opponent in singles play, both preformed admirably earning wins at their respective flights. Nicolas Paulus collected a hard fought 6-3, 6-4 win over Martin Bedecarratz at the first flight, while Santiago Canete earned a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Milos Vukicevic at the third flight. Head coach Steve Mauro mentioned Santiago Canete as another player he was impressed with after singles play. “I was happy with Santiago Canete,” Coach Steve Mauro said. “We’ve been trying to get him back in the line up because of wrist issues. He won his match pretty easily, so we’re just trying to get him back into the flow of things.”

Despite this being the Owls’ second straight shutout victory, Coach Mauro feels the team still has some room for improvement. “I think we definitely need a little more consistency in our singles play and to not make so many unforced errors,” Coach Mauro said. “We also need to work on different combinations in doubles, as well.” Most importantly though, Coach Mauro was just happy to get the win and keep the team’s momentum going.