BOX SCORE
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. – The No. 1 ranked UWF men's tennis team opened play at the NCAA Division II Championships with a resounding 5-0 win over No. 7 ranked Armstrong State at Sanlando Park Tuesday afternoon.
UWF (29-1) advanced to the quarterfinal round where it will face defending national champion and No. 4 ranked Hawaii Pacific (17-4) on Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Armstrong State ended its season at 20-8 as it failed to reach the semifinals for the first time since 2011.
The Argonauts won their 23rd-consecutive match and improved to 16-2 all-time at the facility, which is located about an hour north of Orlando. UWF has won all three of its previous national championships at Sanlando Park.
"We played really good doubles once again," UWF head coach
Derrick Racine said. "And in singles, Warren (Kuhn) played great at two and Alex (Peyrot) played great at one."
On Tuesday, UWF continued to get great doubles play as the squad swept the opening three matches for the 23rd time in 30 matches in 2017.
Gabriel Dias and
Pedro Roese opened the day with an 8-2 win at No. 2 doubles before the nation's No. 1 ranked duo of
Alex Peyrot and
Warren Kuhn secured an 8-5 victory.
Warren Kuhn and
Pablo Tellez improved to 13-0 on the year with an 8-6 win at the three spot, claiming the final three games in the match.
In singles play, Kuhn – the 15th-ranked player in country – scored the fourth team point with a 6-1, 6-1 decision before fourth-ranked Peyrot defeated 38th-ranked Luca Cerin 6-2, 6-3 for the clinching point.
"It was a match that we needed so it will give us confidence going into (tomorrow's) match and it wasn't a marathon so that was very good for us," Racine said, referencing the need to conserve energy as the temperatures in central Florida will be in the mid-to-upper-90s all week.
The appearance in the NCAA Championships marks the 16th for UWF and its fifth in the last six years. The Argos have previously won the national title in 2004, 2005 and 2014.
