May 26, 2010
ATHENS, Ga. – South Carolina seniors Pedro Campos and Diego Cubas dropped their first-round matches at the NCAA Singles Championship at Henry Feild Courts at the University of Georgia Wednesday. Both will continue their Gamecock careers in the NCAA Doubles Championship Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Click here to follow the action live.
Cubas, ranked No. 52 in the nation, suffered a 6-2, 6-1 loss to No. 5 Oleksandr Nedovyesov Wednesday afternoon, struggling to find any rhythm against Oklahoma State’s top players. After falling behind 3-0, Cubas held his second service game to pull within 3-1 and had Nedovyesov on the next game but fell behind 4-1. Cubas’ next two service games went down to the wire with the Gamecock senior prevailing in the first, but Nedovyesov claimed the second to take the set 6-2. The Cowboy senior struck quickly in the second set, opening a 5-0 lead en route to the 6-1 victory and a spot in the second round of the event.
Ranked No. 29 in the nation, Campos needed some time to shake off nerves in his debut in the national event Wednesday morning, falling 6-2 in the first set. The senior was not deterred, however, and pounced on Kutrovsky early in the second set, jumping out to a 4-0 lead with a pair of service breaks. The Longhorns’ top player got one break back to pull within 4-2. Campos fell behind Love-30 in his next service game, but eked out the hold, which Kutrovsky matched to get to 5-3 in the set.
From there Kutrovsky showed why he is among the nation’s 10 best players, allowing Campos just one point in the Gamecock senior’s next two service games to surge to a 6-5 lead. Campos pushed back once more, breaking Kutrovsky’s serve at Love to send the set into a tiebreaker. The Longhorn senior claimed the first two points of the tiebreaker, but Campos answered with two straight points himself. Kutrovsky won the second point of Campos’ second time serving to take a 4-2 lead and went on to a 7-3 victory.
With the loss, Cubas falls to 19-15 in singles play this season. He is 1-2 for his career in the NCAA Singles Championship after splitting a pair of matches in the event in 2009.
Campos ends the singles season with a 17-3 overall record, including a 7-2 mark against nationally ranked opponents. His 84 career single victories rank 13th in program history, while his .667 (84-42) winning percentage is 17th-best by a Gamecock.
The duo, ranked No. 25 in the nation, is slated to open play in the NCAA Doubles Championship on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. against the No. 30 tandem of Jonathan Dahan and Pedro Zerbini of California.
