Men's Tennis defeats Saint Louis

Thursday, March 9

Carbondale, IL

2:00 p.m.

Southern Illinois University

Saint Louis University

Photo by: Madison Case

03/09/2017 | 8:54:00 | Men's Tennis

By: By Sammie Lisberg, SIUSalukis.com

The Southern Illinois men's tennis team swept Saint Louis, 4-0, on Thursday.

SIU started the match by winning the doubles point as the No. 2 duo of Michal Kianicka and Daniel Martinez (6-3), and the No. 3 combo of Wilder Pimentel and Param Pun (6-2) both won their matches.The nationally ranked doubles team of Piotr Baranski and Alex Pozo, playing at the No. 1 spot, did not need to finish their match.

The Salukis (8-2) then won the overall match in short order by winning three of the six singles matchups. Pimentel won in No. 2 singles, winning both sets by a 6-3 margin. Kianicka won 6-0 in both sets at No. 3, and Pun won 6-4 and 6-3 in No. 6 singles.

Baranski, Pozo, and Martinez did not finish their matches in No.1, No.4 and No.5 singles, respectively. Baranski is ranked No. 88 in the nation in singles and No. 63 in doubles with Pozo.

On Saturday, the team will travel to Tennessee to face Austin Peay for the second time this season. The Dawgs beat APSU, 6-1, on Jan. 15.

"I expect both teams to perform better this time around than last time," said SIU coach Jonny Rigby. "There were some tight matches last time and I'm expecting the same thing on Saturday."