BENTONVILLE, Ark. – For the first time in the eight-year history of the Great American Conference Men’s Tennis Championships, both the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds lost in the semifinal round as No. 4 Harding defeated top-ranked Southern Arkansas, 4-0, and No. 3 Southeastern Oklahoma State edged second-seeded Ouachita, 4-3, on Friday from the Memorial Park Tennis Complex.
The match between the Savage Storm (7-6) and Tigers (11-7) came down to the battle at No. 1 singles between GAC Player of the Year Juan Scoppetta, from Southeastern Oklahoma State, and Ouachita’s First-Team All-GAC selection Juan Moncada. Scoppetta won the opening set, 7-6, but Moncada answered with a 6-4 win in the second set. Scoppetta clinched the match with a 6-3 win the deciding set.
SE-OUA Box Score || HU-SAU Box Score
After the Tigers won the doubles point, Southeastern’s Benji Finet evened the contest with a straight-sets victory against Nair Adi at the No. 5 position. Francisco Oliveira, the GAC Freshman of the Year, put the Tigers back in front after he defeated Ondrej Nice, 6-3, 7-5 at No. 2 singles. Danrich Kruger answered for the Savage Storm as he dispatched Santiago Kearney, 6-1, 6-4, in the No. 4 match.
Ouachita moved ahead again when Dan Kaplun beat Sandro Lena at No. 3 in straight sets. Southeastern’s Milos Vuckovic pushed the match to the limit when he knocked off Tobias Fuerschuss in three sets. Fuerschuss forced a third set after he recovered from losing the opening set, 0-6, as he took the second set, 6-3. Vuckovic secured the point with a 6-2 in the decisive set.
In the concurrent semifinal, Harding (13-6) became the third No. 4 seed in GAC Men’s Tennis Championship history to defeat the top seed. The tandems of Will Reeves and Pablo Trevino and Arthur Bellan and Luis Tirado locked up the doubles point as they won at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.
In the singles portion, Alejandro Sendra notched Harding’s second point of the contest as the All-GAC First Team honoree defeated Yuri Gondouin in straight sets. He lost only three games in the No.2 contest. Similarly, Luis Tirado controlled his match with Alexandre Machaj. He won at the No. 4 slot by a score of 6-0, 6-3.
Morgan Salvan clinched the match when he picked up a win in a matchup that featured two First-Team All-GAC picks. He defeated Marko Nikoliuk, 7-5, 6-1, to improve to 17-3 in singles competition.
The Savage Storm and Bisons will meet in the final for the second-straight year and at the GAC Championships for the fourth time in the last five years. Southeastern Oklahoma State has won all three previous meetings. In the regular season the Savage Storm picked up a narrow 4-3 win on April 12. The match begins at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday.