Men's Tennis Halts Two-Match Slide, Earns 4-3 Win at Bellarmine Sunday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Closing out its weekend stay in Louisville, Kentucky, the Belmont University men's tennis team returned to its winning ways Sunday afternoon with a thrilling 4-3 victory at Bellarmine University. The 74th-ranked Bruins, who improved to 6-2 with the road triumph, swept doubles play and won the top three singles matches against the host Knights (6-6).
 
Dominant across all three doubles matches, Belmont gave up just four combined games. Both the top doubles duo of graduate student Marko Ilic and junior Riccardo Trione and the No. 3 doubles tandem of junior Tomas Luis and Sophomore Ian Cruz earned lopsided 6-1 wins. Ilic and Trione bested Bellarmine's Jack Batchelor and Kyle Tang, while Luis and Cruz topped the Knights' Paul and Brent Reynolds. At No. 2 doubles, junior Alfred Wallin and senior Jack Randall ousted Bellarmine's Matthew Nice and Xavier Ecarma 6-2.
 
Singles play was completely different as the two teams split the lineup evenly. Three of the top four singles matches went a full three sets after the hosts earned a convincing win at No. 5 singles to knot the match at 1-1. The Bruins also dropped No. 6 singles where the Knights' Eli Wood got past Luis 7-6, 6-3.
 
Wallin claimed Belmont's lone straight-set singles win on the day, defeating Nice 6-2, 6-4 at the second spot. Trione recovered from a 6-4 opening set loss at No. 4 singles against Paul Reynolds with a 6-3 set two win. However, Reynolds took the decisive third set 6-3.
 
Trailing 3-2, the Bruins got must-win results at No. 1 and No. 3 singles from Ilic and Cruz, respectively. Despite dropping the first set in a 7-5 tiebreaker to Tang at the top spot, Ilic ran away with sets two and three 7-5, 6-3. In an absolute fight at the third spot, Cruz prevailed in back-to-back tiebreakers against Batchelor after surrendering the first set, 6-2. Cruz took both the second and third sets with identical 7-4 tiebreak wins to clinch the match.
 
Up Next
Belmont wraps up its challenging four-match road stretch following a week-long break from match action on Monday, March 6 at Southeastern Conference mainstay Ole Miss.
 
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.