TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — No. 33 Florida State men’s tennis (13-8, 3-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) earned two points against No. 8 Virginia (16-5, 9-0 ACC) on Friday night but was unable to claim a win in one of the toughest matches of the season, finishing 4-2 at Scott Speicher Memorial Tennis Center.
The Noles faced two nationally ranked doubles pairs and four nationally ranked singles players from the Cavaliers.
“I thought it was a really good college tennis match,” head coach Dwayne Hultquist said. “Obviously Virginia is a very good team; they're leading the ACC. I thought we were right there with them.”
FSU handed Virginia only its second ACC doubles loss this season with wins on court three and court one. Alex Bulte and Youcef Rihane swept court three before Maks Silagy and Josh Karpenschif beat the 59th-ranked pair from Virginia to clinch the point.
“That was probably as good as we've played doubles all year,” Hultquist added. “Winning 6-0 at three and 6-2 at one doubles was a really good start.”
Rihane followed up his doubles performance with a singles win on court five in two sets. Both Andreja Petrovic and Richard Thongoana fought back after dropping the first set in singles to win the second and force a third against ranked opponents.
“I was pleased for Youcef to get the straight-set win over a very experienced and good player,” Hultquist shared. “I would applaud Andy and Rich digging down, getting the second sets to put us in a position to win.”
Petrovic fell just short in the third set against the No. 19 singles player in the country to finish the match. Thongoana was leading his match 6-5 in the final set against the No. 28 singles player when the Cavaliers clinched.
“Overall, it was a high-quality match between two good teams,” Hultquist said. “We played five freshmen today and battled right with a top-10 team, and it's showing that we're getting better.”
Florida State returns to the court for the final home match of the season Sunday at 12 p.m. at Scott Speicher Memorial Tennis Center against Virginia Tech. The three graduating seniors, Sebastian Arcila, Bryn Nahrung and Richard Thongoana, will be honored for Senior Day.
