Clemson Men’s Tennis Defeats South Carolina 6-1

March 31, 2004

Clemson, SC — The Clemson Men’s Tennis team defeat arch-rival 56th-ranked South Carolina 6-1 on Wednesday at the Hoke Sloan Tennis Center. The victory ends a nine-game losing streak aganst the Gamecocks and improves Clemson’s all-sports record to 9-2 in One Clemson…Solid Orange events. For Clemson, this marks the first victory over South Carolina since the 1995 season.

Clemson began the match by picking up the doubles point. Nathan Thompson and Jarmaine Jenkins defeated Pedro Rodrigues and Geraldo Knorr 8-5 at number one doubles. At the number two position, Damiisa Robinson fell to Tom Eklund and Marcus Westman 8-6. At number three doubles Brett Twente and Ryan Young held serve to go up 7-6, then broke South Carolina’s serve to win the match 8-6 over Ben Atkinson and Carl Wermee, giving Clemson the 1-0 lead in the match.

The Tigers rolled in the singles portion, winning five of six individual matches. Thompson defeated Westman 7-5, 7-6 (4) at number one singles. Robinson was able to down Wermee 6-3, 6-2 at number three singles, and Ryan Young took care of Knorr 6-2, 6-2 at the number four position. Clement Reix and Twente were both able to overcome one set deficits to defeat Atkinson and Rodrigues in third set tiebreakers.

“This is a huge win for our guys,” said head coach Chuck Kriese. “To have two guys injured and come out and win is tremendous. When you have guys out, all you have left is heart, and we definitely left our heart on the court tonight.”

With the win, Clemson improves to 17-10, 1-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, while South Carolina falls to 12-8. Clemson returns to action on Friday when they play host to Florida State at 2:30 p.m.