Men's tennis team wins singles, doubles titles at ITA Southeast Regionals
Eastern Florida State College men’s tennis player Fernando Martinez Belinchon and the duo of Filip Sormaz and Marko Miljanic won titles at the ITA JUCO Men’s Southeast Regional Championships in Jasper, Alabama
The Eastern Florida State College men's tennis team had a big weekend at the ITA JUCO Men's Southeast Regional Championships in Jasper, Alabama.
Freshman Fernando Martinez Belinchon came into the tournament as the No. 1 seed and defeated teammate Marko Miljanic to win the singles title in straight sets.
Martinez will advance to the ITA Cup October 16-19 in Rome, Georgia. He becomes the third Titans player to advance to the ITA Cup and is the second player to win the ITA JUCO Southeast Regional title. Hugo Car won the title in 2023.
Martinez defeated No. 4 seed Aki Harada in the semifinals in three sets to advance to the final.
Miljanic came into the tournament unseeded and had to defeat two ranked teammates to get into the final. In the quarterfinals, the freshman edged six seed Johan Mottlau 2-6, 6-4, 6-0 and then beat No. 2 seed Pablo Garcia 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 in the semifinals.
The No. 1 doubles team of Filip Sormaz and Miljanic won the doubles title on Sunday, marking the second time in Titans history that an EFSC doubles team has won a Southeast Regional title.
The duo came storming back in the semifinals late Saturday night against No. 4 seed Alexander Grube and Nikith Surapaneni of Wallace State to force a tiebreaker and then won the tiebreaker 7-3 to advance to the final.
The duo faced No. 3 seed Aki Harada and Erdem Tugut of USC Sumter in the championship match on Sunday afternoon.
Sormaz and Miljanic won the first set 6-0 and then won the second set 6-2 to win the title.
Tomas Kurz Cardozo won the consolation final in singles on Sunday. After the sophomore lost in the first round to Coastal Alabama's Julien Cordeau, he rebounded to win the consolation title by defeating Wallace State's Tom Koepf, then Coastal Alabama Community College's Milan Olagnon 8-5 to get to the final. In the final, Kurz defeated USC Sumter's Andrew Griffith 8-5 in the final.
The ITA Cup is a tournament combining southeast regional champions from NCAA Division II and Division III as well as NAIA and JUCO players. Players will play against each other and the winner at Division II, Division III, NAIA and JUCO will face off in the Superbowl.
Eastern Florida State College will compete in the PBA Invite Oct. 3-4 in Boca Raton.