men tennis (Georgi)

Senior Ronny Georgi during a previous men's tennis match.

The East Carolina University men’s tennis team got another win under its belt, this time against Jacksonville State University on Saturday with a 5-2 win at home.

Starting off with doubles matches, the Pirates (11-2) jumped out early on the Gamecocks. (7-1) Redshirt junior Austin Allen and freshman Diogo Marques teamed up to win on court two 6-3. Jacksonville State evened up the match in doubles after defeating freshman player Simon Labbe and senior Vlad Anghel 6-4 on court three.

ECU got the doubles point and the 1-0 lead after sophomore player Wisse Jonker and junior player Javier Renones got a 6-4 win on court one for the Pirates to be able to gain the momentum to go into singles.

Renones helped the Pirates get a 2-0 lead over the Gamecocks after winning his singles match on court four 6-2, 6-0. Jacksonville State tied the match at 2-2 after Jonker and Labbe fell in singles on courts three and six. Jonker who had been dominating in singles up to this point winning 11 of his 12 singles matches, fell in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 on Saturday. Labbe had a tough singles match where he fell in the first set 7-6 (7-4), and lost the second 6-1.

With the match tied at 2-2, it was uncertain with whether ECU would walk out with another win or if Jacksonville State would improve to 8-0 overall. Anghel, Marques and senior Ronny Georgi would decide the match for the Pirates.

Marques and Anghel would fall in the first set of their matches in narrow defeats and win the second set to force a third set. Marques fell in the first set 6-7 (1-7) and win the second 7-5. Anghel lost the first set 5-7, but won the second set in a more dominant fashion 6-1. Marques and Anghel dialed in, in the third set to give ECU win its 11th on the year. Marques finished the third set with a 6-3 win and Anghel finished with a 6-4 win to give the Pirates the 4-2 lead going into the last singles match.

Georgi had the tightest match of the day where the first two sets were decided in tiebreakers. Georgi took the first set 7-6 (7-5), but lost the second set 6-7 (4-7). With the match already decided, Georgi wanted to add to the win and took set three 6-4, to give ECU the 5-2 win at home.

“Hats off to Jacksonville State, they really came at us from start to finish,” assistant coach Ian Van Cott said a the press release. “I’m proud of how we were able to tough out a lot of really tight matches, but we have to be better. The guys know that and we will be ready for another tough one at North Florida on Wednesday.”

The Pirates will hit the road to take on the University of North Florida on Wednesday with the match set to begin at 1 p.m.

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