Simon Felix (left) and Kevin Chaouat (right) notched their 12th doubles victory of the year against Xavier
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The second-ranked Embry-Riddle men's tennis team notched its sixth victory against a ranked opponent this season, downing No. 8 Xavier (La.) 8-1, Thursday at ERAU's Crotty Tennis Complex. Embry-Riddle is now 13-2 on the year, while the loss puts Xavier at 10-6.
The Eagles had an early 2-0 advantage as a depleted Xavier roster forced the Gold Rush to default at the No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles positions. ERAU extended the lead to 4-0 with wins at the top two doubles spots as
Simon Felix and
Kevin Chaouat downed Nikita Soifer and Viktor Svoboda 8-2 in their first match of the year at No. 2, and
Deni Zmak teamed up with
Chris Freeman for an 8-5 defeat of Loic Didavi and Kyle Montrell at the top spot.
The first singles match to reach completion was at the No. 1 position where Zmak dispatched Didavi 6-1, 6-1 to register the clincher for the Blue and Gold. At No. 3 singles,
Anthony Grasso dropped the first set, but battled back to win the second 6-4 before taking the third 10-8 to put the Eagles ahead, 6-0.
After Felix was pulled from the lineup due to an illness,
Miguel Lopez Gomez and
David Spennare moved up to the fourth and fifth spots, respectively, in the Eagle lineup. Spennare had little trouble in his third match of the season at No. 5 as he defeated Ben Brading 6-0, 6-1 to extend his winning streak to 12 matches. Lopez Gomez had a little tougher going as Svoboda held off the ERAU freshman 6-4, 6-4 for the Gold Rush's only point of the afternoon.
The Eagles will play their second match in as many days at 3:30 p.m. on Friday when they host the University of Northern Ohio.
