Sunday, April 05, 2009

FORT MYERS, Fla. (April 4, 2009) - With only two matches left in its Atlantic Sun Conference season the ETSU men's tennis team stayed on track for its fourth straight A-Sun regular season title dropping Florida Gulf Coast, 7-0 Saturday at the FGCU Tennis Complex in Ft. Myers, Fla.

With the win the No. 59-ranked Bucs now sit tied with A-Sun rival USC Upstate for first place in the league. Both ETSU and Spartans will battle it out Tuesday for the chance at the outright title and an undefeated conference mark.

ETSU (10-7, 8-0) opened play taking two out of three doubles contests for the early 1-0 lead. The Buc team of No. 68-ranked seniors Enrique Olivares (Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela) and Alex Ahlgren (Tyreso, Sweden) dropped Thibaud Aime and Brenton Bacon 8-4, while sophomores Grega Teraz (Mojstrana, Slovenia) and Charles Bottoni (Bois Guillame, France) clinched the point in quick fashion dropping Edson Lima and Rafael Costa, 8-1.

The Bucs extended the advantage as singles play opened as No.12-ranked Olivares picked up his 10 straight singles victory with a two-set 7-5, 6-4 No. 1 singles win over Aime. Freshman Sander Gille (Kuringen, Belgium) followed the ETSU senior captain's win dropping Brenton Bacon, 6-4, 7-5, in No. 2 play, while Teraz ran the ETSU lead to 4-0 closing out his match with Ervin Garibovic, 6-1, 6-1.

With the victory now in hand ETSU would stay strong as Bottoni rolled past Edson Lima in straight sets 6-2, 6-2, while freshmen Robin Akser (Ornskoldsvik, Sweden) and Jeremy Bonevalle (Keerbergen, Belgium) both dominated their respective head-to-head contests dropping Rafael Costa and Steve Binninger in straight sets.

For more information on the ETSU men's tennis team please visit www.ETSUBucs.com.