No. 23 Men's Tennis Cruises to Third-Straight Victory
Feb. 8, 2009
Coral Gables, Fla... – The No. 23 University of Miami men’s tennis team picked up its third-straight victory with a 7-0 win over visiting Penn at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center on Sunday afternoon. It marked back-to-back sweeps for the Hurricanes who defeated Clemson, 7-0, in their ACC opener just one day earlier.
With the victory, the Hurricanes improve to 4-2 on the season, while the Quakers – whose assistant coach is former Hurricane All-American Josh Cohen – drop their second-straight to fall to 2-2.
“The guys have stepped up and are becoming better players,” said volunteer assistant Mel Spence. “I don’t think we did anything different over these last two wins. I think it’s the mindset that these guys are getting comfortable with that’s helping them execute better and get more mature as we move along.”
The Hurricanes won all three doubles matches – including dominant 8-1 victories at the No. 2 and 3 positions – to take the early 1-0 lead.
Miami’s Hector Nieto cruised past Justen Roth, 6-0, 6-2 at the No. 6 spot to give the Hurricanes the 2-0 lead and move to 2-0 in dual match play. The Hurricanes then took the 3-0 advantage as David Simon picked up his third-straight singles victory with a 6-0, 6-4 win at No. 3, improving to 2-0 at that position.
Christian Blocker clinched the match victory for the Hurricanes with his second-straight win at No. 1, topping Penn’s Hicham Laalej, 7-6, 6-0.
Ignacio Taboada and No. 96 Carl Sundberg both won in straight sets at No. 2 and 4, respectively, to extend UM’s insurmountable lead to 6-0, while Keith Crowley secured the 7-0 sweep for the Hurricanes with the 7-6, 3-6, 10-4 win at No. 5
After a short break from competition, Miami hits the road for its next two matches, heading to in-state rival No. 7 Florida on Sun., Feb. 22 and then to ACC-rival No. 17 Florida State on Sat., Feb. 28.
“During the next two weeks we will focus on making individual improvements for all of our guys,” said assistant coach CJ Weber. “We’ve learned a lot over our first six matches, so now we get a little bit of a break to allow our guys to rest and work on some of those things we need to improve.”
No. 23 Miami 7, Penn 0
Singles
1. Christian Blocker (UM) def. Hicham Laalej (Penn), 7-6, 6-0
2. Ignacio Taboada (UM) def. Adam Schwartz (Penn), 7-5, 6-4
3. David Simon (UM) def. Phil Law (Penn), 6-0, 6-4
4. No. 96 Carl Sundberg (UM) def. Alex Vasin (Penn), 7-6, 6-3
5. Keith Crowley (UM) def. Jason Lin (Penn), 7-6, 3-6, 10-4
6. Hector Nieto (UM) def. Justen Roth (Penn), 6-0, 6-2
Doubles
1. Christian Blocker/David Simon (UM) def. Hicham Laalej/Phil Law (Penn), 8-6
2. David Rosenfeld/Keith Crowley (UM) def. Adam Schwartz/Alex Vasin (Penn), 8-1
3. Ignacio Taboada/Carl Sundberg (UM) def. Justen Roth/Zach Gorn (Penn), 8-1
Order of finish: Doubles (3, 2*, 1); Singles ( 6, 3, 1*, 2, 4, 5)
