ST. LOUIS – No. 35th-ranked and the East's second seed McKendree University upset 12th-ranked and the East's top seed University of Indianapolis, 4-3, in the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Men's Tennis Championship on Sunday at Dwight Davis Tennis Center in St. Louis, Missouri, to claim its first-ever league title.
Indianapolis got on the board first, scoring the doubles point with a 6-4 win from Edgar Destouet and Yoann Viel at No. 2, followed by another win of the same score for the No. 1 doubles pair of Zac Faveri and Nikolaj Talimaa. UIndy's No. 3 doubles pair of Jason Gerweck and Pedro Franca was up 5-4 before going unfinished.
The Greyhounds' lead was pushed to 2-0 after Viel defeated Subash Paramasivam 6-3, 6-3 at No. 3, but McKendree gained steam at singles 1 and 5, tying the match at 2-2 with respective wins from GLVC Player of the Year Leonardo Frederico 6-2, 6-0 and Vishnu Prasad 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.
A three-set win from UIndy at No. 6 by Franca 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2) put the Hounds up 3-2, while singles 2 and 4 continued on.
Bearcats' 54th-ranked Boriss Kamdem snagged a 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 upset over UIndy's 24th-ranked Talimaa to knot the match again at 3-all. The deciding point would come down to the fourth singles match between Julappagari Reddy and Faveri, which also went to three sets, being won by Reddy 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to secure the win.
At the conclusion of the Championship, McKendree head coach René Vidal was named GLVC Coach of the Year. His Bearcats, the GLVC automatic qualifier, now await the NCAA Selection Show on Tuesday, May 3 at 8:30 PM ET to determine their Regional fate. The 2022 NCAA Division II Championships will be played May 17-21 at Sanlando Park in Altamonte, Fla., following the preliminary rounds on May 9-10.
All tournament matches that streamed live on the GLVC Sports Network this weekend can be replayed by choosing the "On Demand" tab on
GLVCSN.com, the GLVCSN iOS/Android mobile apps, or on the Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV OTT platforms.
Visit
GLVCsports.com/2022mten for complete results and other details.