Men’s tennis drops match at Ga. State

The Winthrop men’s tennis team dropped a 6-1 decision to 63rd ranked Georgia State on Saturday at Piedmont Park to snap a two-game win streak.

The Eagles are now 5-5 while Georgia State improves to 6-3.

Winthrop’s only win came at the No. 2 singles position where freshman Diego Quiroz (Guayaquil, Ecuador) claimed a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Zackery Kennedy.

The Panthers won two out of the three doubles matches to take the point. Winthrop’s duo of senior Michael Chen (Johnson City, TN) and freshman Aditya Gokhale (Pune, India) won their No. 2 doubles match with a 6-3 decision over the team of Felipe Jaworski and Jannis Koeke. However, after the No. 3 team of Quiroz and sophomore Josh Ryan (Gold Coast, Australia) fell to Kennedy and Joseph Bishop by a 6-2 score, it came down to the No. 1 match between senior Steven Patrick (Knoxville, TN) and junior Tremayne Mitchell (Johannesburg, S. Africa) and the GSU team of Sebastian Acuna and Andrei Andrukhou. The Panthers came away with a 6-3 win to earn the doubles point.

In singles action, Chen got off to a quick 4-1 start at No. 3 against Georgia State’s Andrukhou, but could not convert, losing the set 6-4 and eventually falling 6-1 in the second set. At No. 2, Quiroz tried to make a statement for the Eagles after he overcame a 3-5 deficit in the first set to win 7-5 before closing out Kennedy with a 6-2 win in the second set.

Mitchell fell to Koeke 6-4 6-2 at No. 1. At the No. 5 position, Gokhale dropped the first set 6-4 and saw his comeback effort come up short against Jack MacFarlane in a 6-4 second set loss after being up 4-1. Patrick gave a strong fight at No. 4 before losing to Acuna 6-4, 7-5. At No. 6 singles, freshman Ruy Teixeira (Sao Paulo, Brazil) battled Jaworski into a match tiebreaker, but could not come up with the win, falling 6-4, 4-6, 12-10.

The Eagles will head to Macon, GA on Sunday to take on Mercer University in a noon match.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 8:19 PM with the headline "Men’s tennis drops match at Ga. State."