Men's Tennis Opens SBC Men’s Tennis Championship Thursday

TROY, Ala. – Fifth-seeded Troy opens its run towards a Sun Belt Conference men's tennis championship Thursday at 9 a.m. (CT) against fourth-seeded Coastal Carolina in the opening round of the Sun Belt Tournament at the Peachtree City Tennis Center in Peachtree City, Ga. The match will be broadcast live on ESPN+.

The quarterfinal pairing is a rematch of a contest from less than a month ago when the Chanticleers (10-10, 3-3) edged the Trojans (15-9, 2-3) by a 4-3 margin. The teams split the six singles matches, with the clinching point coming on court one in three sets, and the doubles point decided the match.

"This team fights and is resilient," head coach Rolando Vargas said. "We never turned away from what was needed to do after a tough stretch; we came back strong with a win over a good UTA team and a Louisiana team that was ranked as high as No. 38 in the nation. That finish gives us a lot of confidence heading into the tournament, where in reality, the top five teams in this league are really close."

The initial meeting came before Vargas deployed a new doubles lineup plus a revamped look to the bottom of the singles lineup. Following the loss to Coastal, Vargas paired Pelayo Antuna and Noah Martens on court two and Carles Anton and Vito Llinares on court three for doubles. The result of the change? The Trojans are 6-0 on those two courts, including SBC matches against No. 48 Louisiana and UTA.

In singles, Christopher Tasker was slotted into the No. 6 spot while Llinares slid into the No. 5 spot for those three matches, and they responded by going 5-1 individually to lead Troy to three team wins.

"We had high expectations of ourselves coming into the season, and we played a tough schedule to get the wins we wanted," Vargas said. "We lost a bunch of 4-3 matches, including at No. 24 Florida State, but our guys fought all season long. If we play with a sense of urgency, like we did down the stretch, good things can happen."

Troy has won 67 percent of its singles matches this season, paced by 18 wins each from Anton and Llinares, while Martens enters the SBC Tournament 15-7 on the year, Nicolas Simkin is 12-10 and Antuna is 11-8 on court one. Tasker, who hadn't played singles in two months before the new-look lineup, is 7-2 on the year.

The winner between Troy and Coastal Carolina will take on top-seeded Georgia State on Friday. The Trojans took the Panthers to the wire earlier in the year, losing 4-3 in Atlanta in a match where Troy had a pair of match points.

Men's Tennis Opens SBC Men’s Tennis Championship Thursday

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Players Mentioned

Carles Anton

Pelayo Antuna

Vito Llinares

Noah Martens

Nicolas Simkin

Christopher Tasker

Troy University Athletics