MEN'S TENNIS SWEEPS SINGLES AND DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIPS AT COKER INVITATIONAL

Florence, SC - Coker Men's Tennis was on a role this weekend, capturing championships in both doubles and singles at the Coker Invitational at the Florence Tennis Center.

A full two days of tennis occurred with each athlete playing as many as six combined matches between doubles and singles. There were three flights (brackets) for singles and two for doubles, and there was success all the way down the lineup.

Three of our men (Sam Winter, Tom Lamers, and Sharif Vossen) competed in the top flight of singles, with Winter and Lamers being named co-champions. The two started the final and split sets before calling off the match due to concerns about injury and fatigue. After losing in the first round, Vossen ended up winning out to claim the back-draw title, defeating Columbia College's Liam Barry in the back-draw final 7-5, 6-4.

Elsewhere in singles, Benedikt Wittman made the final in the second singles flight. He defeated Chowan's Tadeo Missan 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 in round one to move on to the semifinals where he was up on Chowan's Nikola Cvetanovic 6-3, 1-0 before his opponent retired due to injury and fatigue. Unfortunately, he fell in the final to Chowan's Thales Sette to finish as the runner-up. Other athletes competing in that flight were Andy Huyhn and Joao Casas, with Casas earning a round-one win over Benedict College's Divgurjot Singh 6-4, 6-4.

In the third singles flight, five athletes (Vincent Schlichler, Miguel Moyano, Gijs Van Asdonck, Joao Pugliese, and Jacob Warren) all competed, with each earning first-round wins. However, only one could win, with Pugliese defeating Benedict College's Manache Marume 2-6, 6-4, 10-5 in the final to claim the championship. Warren claimed the third-place finish, defeating his teammate Van Asdonck 6-1, 6-2 in the consolation bracket.

It was a dominant day in doubles as well, with two Cobra pairings squaring off in the top flight's championship and it coming down to the wire. The pairing of Winter and Wittmann were your champions, defeating another Cobra pairing in the form of Huyhn and Casas 7-6 (4) in the final. The top three finishes were Cobras in that flight, with the Lamers and Van Asdonck pairing defeating Marcel Ungerboeck and Tadeo Missan of Chowan 6-2 in the third-place match. Vossen and Pugliese also paired up in this flight, winning the back draw. They defeated Benedict College's Singh and Coker's Warren 6-4 in the back-draw final.

Down in the second flight, the only Cobra pairing was Moyano and Schlichler, who won the back draw. After losing in the first round, they claimed two straight victories (6-1 over Johnson C. Smith's Moises Difuti and James Makaranga, 6-2 over Columbia College's Gabriel Kian and Owen Brumfield) to secure that finish.

This tournament was the men's last showing until the spring. It has been a very productive Fall for each person in the lineup and they will look to use this momentum heading into their true season.