PENSACOLA, Fla. - No. 17 UWF men's tennis (8-4, 3-1 GSC) prevailed 4-3 over No. 15 Ouachita Baptist (8-4, 1-0 MIAA) in a battle of teams ranked in the top 20 in the nation at the Ralph "Skeeter" Carson Tennis Complex on Wednesday afternoon.  
 
The Tigers showed their mettle early on, as their No. 1 doubles team of Phil Exner and Alex Blanchar, nationally recognized at No. 9 in the latest ITA doubles rankings, won 6-3 over Denilso Martinez and Diego Duran. This was in response to Bernardo Costa and Sebastian Rondon winning 6-2 at No. 2 over Aaron Osmond and Ramon Strassmann. The visitors took the doubles point, as Elias Lagger and Fernando Docters beat Albin Ekenros and Joaquin Estevez in a tiebreaker 7-6 (7-4).
 
The Argos were unfazed, as Duran defeated Lagger 6-2, 6-0 at No. 5 singles and Ekenros won 6-2, 6-4 at No. 4 over Strassmann to take the lead. From here, every singles match went to the third set. OBU responded to tie the match as Blanchar beat Costa 1-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 at No. 1, though Sebastian Sotelo got the point back with a 4-6, 6-0, 7-5 win over Docters at No. 3. The Tigers weren't going anywhere, as Osmond tied the match 3-3 with a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 win over Mateo Martinez. From there, it was up to the No. 2 matchup between two nationally ranked players, No. 22 Rondon and No. 16 Exner, to decide the contest. After dropping the first set 6-4, Rondon came back to claim the second 6-2 before finishing off the visitors with a 6-3 win in the third frame.
 
UWF travels to Columbus, Ga., this week for its next three games. The weekend slate starts with a makeup GSC match against Shorter on Thursday, March 21, at 4 pm ET/3 pm CT.  
 
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