MEN’S TENNIS: Canes bounce back, defeat in-state rival Knights

After a tough road loss against Rice University last weekend, the men’s tennis team rebounded with a convincing win against in-state rival Central Florida 6-1 on Friday afternoon.

Wins in two of three doubles matches as well as five of six singles matches carried the Canes, with the sole loss coming in the No. 5 position held by freshman Keith Crowley.

Freshman Carl Sundburg and junior Daniel Vallverdu had great days with a victory as part of the 30th-ranked doubles team and straight-sets wins 7-6, 6-4 and 6-1, 6-1 in singles respectively.

“Obviously it’s always good to win matches again,” Sundburg said. “Last week Rice was playing real well. We got a good start today with doubles wins at No. 1 and 2 and then some of our players won in straight sets in No. 1 and 3 and also 6. It was a good feeling to win a match before our match next Sunday with a good team so I think we have to play better to beat them.”

Senior Vivek Subramanian and junior David Rosenfeld’s 18th-ranked pairing won 8-6 and both won later in the afternoon in singles.

No. 98 Rosenfeld overcame sickness and a tough first set loss to win the next set and tiebreaker in the No. 2 spot against sophomore Johan Beigart. Sophomore Barnabas Carrega, meanwhile, earned the deciding point in the match in the sixth spot with a straight-sets victory.

“We always know that Central Florida is going to bring a really good team to Miami when we play them,” said Head Coach Mario Rincon. “They’re very well-coached and they’re always ready to play us. Schools in Florida always compete extremely hard against each other and they were definitely ready for us today. We played very well in a few spots. I thought that Carl played well and Vivek played extremely well and helped us put some matches away that were really tight. We feel good going into Sunday to play South Florida.”

Sunday’s match against No. 54 South Florida was postponed due to inclement weather and a make-up date has yet to be announced.

The 26th-ranked Hurricanes (5-2) return to action Wednesday against Furman at 2 p.m. at the Neil Schiff Tennis Center.

Christina De Nicola may be contacted at c.denicola@umiami.edu.