Men's Tennis Claims Battle of the Boulevard with 6-1 Win Sunday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Completing a 2-0 weekend, the Belmont University men's tennis team routed rival Lipscomb 6-1 Sunday in the Battle of Boulevard at the Ensworth Tennis Center in Nashville. Improving to 3-0 on the season, the Bruins won the top four singles flights in straight sets after capturing the all-important doubles point.
 
Continuing to shine indoors, the doubles duos of graduate student Marko Ilic/junior Riccardo Trione and senior Jack Randall/junior Alfred Wallin remained perfect in 2023 with wins at the top two doubles spots. Randall and Wallin clinched the doubles point with a 7-5 win at No. 2 doubles over the Bisons' Maksim Bogdanovich and Jake Penny after Ilic and Trione got the first result of the day, defeating Lipscomb's Carlos Salas Tulla and Luka Stojanovic 6-2 at No. 1 doubles.
 
The Bisons (1-1) were able to take one of the three doubles matches as Henrique Ushizima and Vikash Singh got past sophomore Ian Cruz and junior Tomas Luis at the No. 3 spot, 7-5.
 
Belmont, however, wasted no time in securing the victory in singles action thanks to swift dismissals by Ilic, Luis, Cruz and Trione. Cruz topped Ushizima at No. 3 singles 6-2, 6-0, while Luis collected a 6-2, 6-1 win against Singh at No. 2 singles.
 
Trione earned identical 6-3 set wins against Salas Tulla at the No. 4 singles position to seal the fourth point of the match, before Ilic bested Bogdanovich 6-3, 6-1 at the top singles spot.
 
Lipscomb's lone singles triumph came at the fifth spot where Penny earned a 6-2, 6-3 win over junior Niklas von Hellens.
 
In the final match of the day at No. 6 singles, sophomore Gabriel Sardo edged Stojanovic in a third set super tiebreaker. Sardo took control early, winning the opening set 6-4 before Stojanovic matched the score with a 6-4 set two win. The battle would come down to the 10-point tiebreaker where Sardo outlasted Stojanovic, 10-8.
 
Up Next
The Bruins have a week off from match action before returning to the Ensworth Tennis Center next Sunday to host the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. First serve is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Live scoring of the dual will be available at BelmontBruins.com.
 
Follow Belmont men's tennis on social media – @BelmontMTennis on Twitter and @belmontmtennis on Instagram – for complete coverage of the Bruins. Stay up to date with all of Belmont's athletic programs via the official app of the Belmont Bruins, available both in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.