CCU men’s tennis team clinches at least a share of Big South title

The Coastal Carolina men’s tennis team had an all too familiar obstacle standing in its way Sunday afternoon with Winthrop visiting, but the Chanticleers also had their burgeoning home-court advantage going for them as well.

And sure enough, once again the Chants came through with an impressive performance in their new facility while knocking off the Eagles, 6-1, in a pivotal Big South competition.

With that win, Coastal Carolina (11-5, 6-1 Big South) clinched at least a share of the conference’s regular-season championship and will look to claim the title outright when it hosts Radford on Wednesday.

“We lost to Winthrop twice last year, we lost to them in the conference tournament, so we knew it was going to be really tough,” Chants coach Chris Powers said. “They were coming in in second place, we were in first place. I was just really pleased with our play.”

The key Sunday was capturing the doubles point. The teams had split the first two doubles matches that finished, including an 8-6 Coastal Carolina win from Vuk Velickovic and Garik Yedigarian.

That left the Chants’ No. 1 doubles team of Philippe Tsangarides and Kaue Pereira to finish the job. The duo stayed undefeated in Big South play by closing out an 8-7 win over Winthrop’s Dylan Comerford and Peter Nagovnak.

“We knew if we could somehow scrap out the doubles point that would take a lot of their confidence away going into singles,” Powers said. “The last match came down to a tiebreaker and I would say that was the difference and we really stayed on them in singles.”

Tsangarides posted another tough win at No. 1 singles with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 victory over Tremayne Mitchell, Velickovic won 6-0, 6-4 at No. 3 singles, Yedigarian won at the No. 4 spot 7-5, 6-1, Jabor Al-Mutawa won at No. 5 6-4, 6-3 and Renan Samed won 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 at No. 6.

The $2 million Coastal Carolina Tennis Complex opened across U.S. 501 this season and the men’s team is now 6-0 there while the Chants’ women’s team, which also earned a share of the Big South regular-season title, has lost just once in the new facility.

Powers said that’s not a coincidence as the teams have built a comfort level on their new courts.

“I really think the new facility just gives us a first class advantage with the court surface,” he said. “These courts play relatively slow and I think it takes a while for opponents to get used to that. The facility really helped us today, but with that being said, I think we really are truly peaking at the right time.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "CCU men’s tennis team clinches at least a share of Big South title."