Men's Tennis Defeats No. 28 Florida State, 4-3

The win stretched the all-time series record to 46-13 for the Hurricanes (5-3, 1-0 ACC), who sent the Seminoles (5-5, 0-1 ACC) into a four-game skid, all against ranked opponents.

“We did a great job today after losing the doubles point, starting 0-1 down, playing an away match against our biggest rivals FSU, and winning,” senior Keith Crowley said.  “That’s a huge road win for us, and I’m pumped to start this season off as strong as we have.”

It was apparent that the match would be a tight contest from the start, with Florida State taking the doubles point, two matches to one.  In number one doubles, Florida State’s No. 13-ranked team of Vahid Mirzadeh and Connor Smith defeated Miami’s Pedro Ast and Keith Crowley, 8-2. 

Miami then came back at No. 2 doubles as the team of Christian Blocker and Carl Sundberg beat Florida State’s tandem of Andres Bucaro and Anderson Reed, 8-5.

No. 3 doubles was the deciding factor for the doubles point as Miami’s team of Waylon Chin and Eduardo Pavia went to a tiebreak against Florida State’s Clint Bowles and Jordan Kelly-Houston, falling 9-8 (7-5).

Singles was more of the same competitiveness, as Crowley defeated Smith, 7-6(7-5), 6-0 in No. 3 singles to tie the match at one point apiece.

Miami then took the lead thanks to Pavia’s straight-set win over Bucaro, 6-4, 6-4, at No. 5 singles.  Miami would never trail again in the match.

However, Florida State did tie the match as Mirzadeh, ranked No. 26 in the nation defeated Chin 7-5, 6-3 in No. 1 singles.

The back-and-forth match continued as freshman Gabriel Flores defeated Reed, 7-5, 6-3, to put Miami up 3-2.  After Florida State tied it again with a win at No. 2 singles, it all came down to the action on court four. 

Sundberg had taken the first set easily, 6-1, against Kelly-Houston, but Kelly-Houston had rebounded to take the second set 6-4.  With both teams looking to start off their conference seasons with a big win over a ranked opponent, it was Sundberg who came through in the clutch, taking the second set, 6-3.

“I’m so proud of the entire team — we competed so hard. We lost the doubles part in the breaker, but the guys did so well after that. We got some early leads in the singles and used that momentum,” head coach Mario Rincon said. “Carl played a great match to clinch it for us. Our seniors competed like champs today and we’ve been working really hard in practice and it’s paying off. We have a great season ahead of us and it’s so great for us to get this win. We’re looking forward to playing UCF and USF on the road next weekend.”

Miami next travels to Orlando on Friday to take on UCF before heading to Tampa for a Sunday match against USF.