Liberty University
LSU
No. 4 Seed LSU Edges No. 3 Seed Liberty 4-3 on Sunday at ITA Kickoff Weekend
1/30/2022 3:21:24 PM | Men's Tennis
In a back-and-forth match between Liberty and LSU, it was the No. 4-seeded Tigers who edged the No. 3-seeded Flames 4-3 on Sunday at the Carolina Indoor Tennis Center.
Locked in a 3-3 tie, it came down to the final match on court, the No. 3 singles contest between Liberty’s Rafael Marques Da Silva and LSU’s Joao Graca. Marques Da Silva erased a 4-1 deficit to tie it at 4-all, but Graca served his way to a 5-4 lead and broke serve to take the match, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
The Flames fall to 1-3 on the season and finish 0-2 in their second appearance at ITA Kickoff Weekend. LSU bolsters its record to 3-1 and closes the weekend 1-1 after the consolation match victory. No. 1 seed and 13th-ranked South Carolina (5-0) will meet No. 2 seed Duke (3-0) in this afternoon’s championship match at 2:45 p.m.. The winner will advance to the 47th Annual ITA Division I Men’s Team Indoor Championship, held Feb. 18-21 at Washington.
The Flames’ three points are the most they have scored in an ITA Kickoff Weekend match in school history. A win over LSU would have been Liberty’s first-ever over an SEC opponent.
Thoughts From Head Coach Derek Schwandt
“We took some good lessons away from the matches this weekend vs. Duke and LSU. The team is hungry to respond and bring enthusiasm and strong work ethic to training.”
LSU 4, Liberty 3
 Singles Competition
- Nicaise Muamba (LIBERTYM) def. Vlad Lobak (LSU) 7-6 (7-1), 6-2
- Kent Hunter (LSU) def. Josh Wilson (LIBERTYM) 6-2, 6-4
- Joao Graca (LSU) def. R. Marques Da Silva (LIBERTYM) 3-6, 6-4, 6-4
- Christiaan Worst (LIBERTYM) def. Boris Kozlov (LSU) 6-4, 6-2
- Gabriel Diaz Freire (LSU) def. Deji Thomas-Smith (LIBERTYM) 6-2, 6-4
- Benjamin Ambrosio (LSU) def. Thando Longwe-Smit (LIBERTYM) 7-6 (7-3), 6-3
Doubles Competition
- Deji Thomas-Smith/Christiaan Worst (LIBERTYM) vs. #45 Vlad Lobak/Gabriel Diaz Freire (LSU) 6-6 (4-5), unfinished
- Nicaise Muamba/R. Marques Da Silva (LIBERTYM) def. Boris Kozlov/Kent Hunter (LSU) 6-4
- Goncalo Ferreira/Josh Wilson (LIBERTYM) def. Ben Koch/Nick Watson (LSU) 7-6 (8-6)
Liberty 1-3
LSU 3-1
Order of finish: Doubles (2,3); Singles (2,5,6,4,1,3)
ITA Kickoff Weekend
T-3:01
How It Happened
• The Flames had a 1-0 lead after winning the doubles point, but LSU claimed four of the six singles matches (No. 2, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 3) for the win.
• Liberty won a thrilling back-and-forth doubles session to gain an early 1-0 advantage. The Flames’ No. 2 duo, Nicaise Muamba and Rafael Marques Da Silva, topped LSU’s Boris Kozlov and Kent Hunter 6-4.
• The other two doubles matches both went to tiebreakers, and it was the No. 3 doubles match that gave Liberty the doubles point. The Flames’ Josh Wilson and Goncalo Ferreira trailed 5-4 and 6-5 to Ben Koch and Nick Watson of the Tigers. The Flames pairing fought back to force a tiebreaker at 6-6 but faced a match point at 6-5 in the tiebreaker. Wilson and Ferreira won the next three points to claim the match in dramatic fashion, 7-6 (8-6).
• The No. 1 doubles match between Deji Thomas-Smith and Christiaan Worst (Liberty) and No. 45 Vlad Lobak and Gabriel Diaz Freire was tightly-contested throughout. The Liberty pairing trailing 5-4 before breaking LSU and eventually taking a 6-5 lead. However, LSU sent the match to a tiebreaker at 6-all and led 5-4 in the tiebreaker. The match went unfinished after the Flames’ Wilson and Ferreira clinched the doubles point.
• LSU evened the match at 1-1 with Hunter’s straight-sets win (6-2, 6-4) over Wilson of Liberty. The Tigers took their first lead of the day after a victory from Diaz Freire against Thomas-Smith, 6-2, 6-4.
• LSU made it a two point advantage, 3-1, when sophomore Benjamin Ambrosio (No. 6 singles) took down Liberty’s Thando Longwe-Smit 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.
• Liberty’s Christiaan Worst capped off a 2-0 weekend of singles play with a 6-4, 6-2 result versus his counterpart, Kozlov, on court four to get the Flames within one (3-2). Worst improves to a team-best 3-1 in singles in 2022.
• The Flames’ No. 1 singles competitor, Muamba, battled out of an early 4-2 hole in his opening set with Lobak and won a first-set tiebreaker 7-6 (7-1). Muamba controlled the second set on the way to winning the match, 7-6 (1), 6-2 to even the score at 3-all and set the stage for a showdown on court three.
• Graco’s aforementioned victory against Marques Da Silva came in comeback fashion after he dropped the first set 6-3. He won the second and third sets by identical 6-4 scores. Graca trailed 30-15 in the final game (led 5-4 at the time) but won the final three points to take the match.
• Prior to Sunday, the last time the Flames had faced an SEC opponent was at Auburn on Feb. 2, 2018 in Liberty head coach Derek Schwandt’s first season at the helm. The Tigers won that match 4-1. The one-point defeat is the Flames’ closest setback to an SEC team in program history.
• The Flames fall to 0-4 all-time at the prestigious ITA Kickoff Weekend, with all four of those matches coming in the last two seasons. Liberty is 0-2 all-time against LSU. The two teams met for the first time nearly eight years ago (Feb. 8, 2014).
Next Up
• Liberty’s next match will on the road at Elon (0-2), Friday afternoon. Match time between the Flames and Phoenix is 2 p.m. at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center in Elon, N.C.
• The Flames defeated the Phoenix 5-2 in the most recent meeting on Jan. 17, 2021, in what was Liberty’s 2021 home opener.
Team Stats
#1 Doubles Match
#2 Doubles Match
#3 Doubles Match
Order of Finish:
2,3
#1 Singles Match
#2 Singles Match
#3 Singles Match
#4 Singles Match
#5 Singles Match
#6 Singles Match
Order of Finish:
2,5,6,4,1,3