Men's Tennis Tests Eighth-Seeded Tennessee in NCAA Championship First Round

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Giving the eighth-seeded and ninth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers all they could handle in singles play, the Belmont University men's tennis team fought to the final point of a 4-1 defeat in the opening round of the 2023 NCAA Men's Tennis Championship Saturday afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Bruins (21-6) earned their first-ever national postseason point in their third NCAA Championship appearance as junior Tomas Luis picked up a straight-set victory at No. 3 singles.
 
Testing regional host Tennessee (22-7) on all six singles courts, Belmont extended the match following doubles action with high-level tennis across its lineup at the Barksdale Tennis Stadium. Although his match went unfinished, sophomore Ian Cruz took the first set off nationally-ranked Shunsuke Mitsui at fourth singles.
 
The Volunteers imposed their will in doubles with the Bruins taking a moment to settle into the match. At the second spot, senior Jack Randall and junior Alfred Wallin trailed the 59th-ranked pair of Emile Hudd and Mitsui 5-3 when Tennessee clinched the doubles point at the third position.
 
The Vols' duo of Pat Harper and Johannus Monday, who are ranked No. 4 in the nation, topped the nationally-ranked tandem of graduate student Marko Ilic and junior Riccardo Trione 6-2 at No. 1 doubles just before Tennessee's Angel Diaz and Martim Prata defeated Luis and Cruz 6-1 at the No. 3 spot.
 
Giving the home team a 2-0 lead, Diaz bested Trione 6-2, 6-3 at fifth singles but Belmont responded with Luis' convincing win on court three. Luis dismissed the Vols' Blaise Bicknell 6-4, 6-3 to make it 2-1.
 
Despite Ilic holding a 4-2 lead on Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Monday in the opening set, Tennessee's fifth-ranked player was able to overcome the deficit at No. 1 singles with a 6-4, 6-0 win. The clinching match came at the sixth spot where the Vols' Tomas Rodriguez got past Randall 6-2, 6-4, but not without resistance in the second set. Randall held a 3-1 lead in set two and evened the set at 4-all before Rodriguez closed out the last two games.
 
At the fourth spot, Cruz edged out 117th-ranked Mitsui 7-4 in a first-set tiebreaker but was down 5-1 in the second when the match went final. Battling 31st-ranked Hudd at No. 2 singles, Wallin narrowly dropped a 6-4 first set and was trailing 5-3 in the second when Tennessee finished things on court six.
 
The Bruins' 21 wins on the season are a program best and Belmont was making its second NCAA Championship appearance in three years.
 
Luis finishes his junior campaign with an impressive 26 singles victories, the most of any Bruin in a single season in school history. He finishes the spring riding a team-best 14-match winning streak.
 
Ilic finishes his remarkable Belmont career as the winningest singles and doubles player in program history. Across five seasons, Ilic amassed 83 doubles victories and 73 singles wins.
 
The loss snapped the Bruins' 14-match winning streak, which was one of the longest in the nation.

?? | Head coach Mauricio Antun following the Bruins' third @NCAATennis Championship appearance and Belmont's first-ever point in national postseason play ????#ItsBruinTime pic.twitter.com/26YXNmX2kf

— Belmont MTennis (@BelmontMTennis) May 6, 2023

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.