By Rob Schabert, Assistant Athletic Director for Sports
Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- It's about 210 kilometers (131 miles) from
Alberto Esteban's home in Madrid to Cuenca, the Spanish city that
Alvaro Cintas calls home. On Thursday afternoon, the distance
between the two Golden Eagles was considerably shorter -- about the
width of a single tennis court.
Their assignments were exactly the same -- win. After everything
else had been settled on the Tennessee Tech campus courts, it came
down to Esteban, a freshman, and Cintas, a sophomore for the Golden
Eagles. Their team trailing in the match, 3-2, both had to pull out
their singles contests for coach Kenny Doyle's team to grab the
Ohio Valley Conference match against rival Austin Peay.
In the No. 2 contest, Esteban fought back to capture his first set
over Dimitar Ristovski, 7-6 with a tiebreaker in three. He then
made short work of the second set, winning 6-1. That knotted the
match at 3-3, and all the attention shifted to the No. 5 court,
where Cintas was battling Jamaes Mitchell.
Cintas withstood Mitchell's relentless volleys to win a 7-6 first
set, but the Governor freshman worked his way back to claim a 6-4
second set. More than four hours after the day's action began,
Cintas prevailed with a 7-5 win to clinch the victory for the
Golden Eagles, 4-3.
It proved worth the extra 11-day wait for the Golden Eagle. The
match was originally postponed due to poor weather.
Tech had won the doubles point with wins in the bottom two spots.
First, Cintas and Gagan Jain (photo above) put an 8-3 win in the
books over Mitchell and Manuel Montenegro in the No. 3 position.
Minutes later, Vasily Eremeev and Artem Tarasov clinched an 8-6 win
at No. 2 over Iago Seffrin and Ristovski. On the No. 1 court,
Esteban and Oleksiy Arovin were up, 6-5, when the match against
Jasmin Ademovic and Aleksas Tverijonas was ended without a
result.
Tverijonas was the first winner in singles play, sweeping to a
6-0, 6-1 win at No. 3 over Eremeev to even the match at 1-1. Arovin
won his 11th consecutive match, rolling to a 6-2, 6-2 win over
Ademovic at the No. 1 spot, improving to 12-2 in dual matches in
his first season for the Golden Eagles after a transfer from
Oklahoma State.
APSU captured the next two to finish, and took a 3-2 lead in the
match. First, Montenegro posted a 6-0, 6-3 win over Gonzalo Munoz
in the No. 6 match, followed by Iago Seffrin at No. 4 with a 6-2,
7-5 win over Jain.
That left Esteban and Cintas to battle it out for the win, and
they got the job done. The win allowed Tech (3-11/2-3 OVC) to snap
a three-match losing streak. Austin Peay 's record moved to 7-5
overall and 2-2 in the OVC.
Tech has now won 19 of the last 22 matches with Austin Peay,
remaining unbeaten against the Govs on the Tech courts since 1984
with a 13-0 record.
The Golden Eagles get the weekend off, returning to action next Friday, April 4, when they face USC Upstate at noon in Johnson City, Tenn. Tech then plays two OVC matches in Nashville, meeting Belmont Saturday (April 5) at 10 a.m., and Tennessee State Sunday (April 6) at 1 p.m.
Tennessee Tech 4, Austin Peay 3
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Tech Campus Courts / Cookeville, Tenn.
Singles Competition
No. 1 - Oleksiy Arovin
(Tech) def. Jasmin Ademovic, 6-2, 6-2
No. 2 - Alberto
Esteban (Tech) def. Dimitar Ristovski, 7-6 (3), 6-1
No. 3 - Aleksas Tverijonas (APSU) def. Vasily Eremeev,
6-0, 6-1
No. 4 - Iago Seffrin (APSU) def. Gagan Jain, 6-2,
7-5
No. 5 - Alvaro Cintas
(Tech) def. James Mitchell, 7-6, 4-6, 7-5
No. 6 - Manuel Montenegro (APSU) def. Gonzalo Munoz, 6-0,
6-3
Doubles Competition
No. 1 - Oleksiy
Arovin/Alberto
Esteban (Tech) vs. Jasmin Ademovic/Alexsas Tverijona (APSU),
unfinished
No. 2 - Vasily
Eremeev/Artem Tarasov
(Tech) def. Iago Seffrin/Dimitar Ristovski, 8-6
No. 3 - Alvaro Cintas/Gagan Jain
(Tech) def. James Mitchell/Manuel Montenegro, 8-3
Order of Finish:
Doubles 3, 2, -
Singles 3, 1, 6, 4, 2, 5
Records: Tech 2-11 / 2-3 OVC, Austin Peay 7-5 /
2-2 OVC
