May 27, 2010

ATHENS, Ga. – South Carolina seniors Pedro Campos and Diego Cubas won their first-round match at the NCAA Doubles Championship at Henry Field Courts at the University of Georgia. The nation’s 25th-ranked doubles tandem scored a 7-6 (5), 6-4 win over No. 30 Jonathan Dahan and Pedro Zerbini of California to advance to the round of 16, becoming the first Gamecock duo to do so since the 1989 event.

In the opening-round contest, the two teams held serve through a 3-2 South Carolina lead. The Gamecocks broke through with a service break at Love to take a 4-2 lead, but Cal’s top duo broke right back for 4-3. After Campos held his next service game, the Bears once again took advantage of Cubas’ serving difficulties to take a 6-5 lead. Serving for the set, the Cal team fell behind Love-40. The game went to deuce before the Gamecocks finally closed out the win, sending the set to a tiebreaker. The tiebreaker was tight throughout with each team giving up a point on its serve early. South Carolina took a 4-3 lead midway through and consolidated that mini-break with pair of points on Campos’ next set of service points, holding on for the 7-5 win.

The second set was a battle for every point right from the start. The Gamecocks leveled the set at 1-1 on their first service game but needed to survive four deuces before Cubas closed it out with an overhead slam. The teams traded games to 2-2 when South Carolina turned the screws more tightly on the Bears, going up 40-15. Cal was up to the task, pressing the game to deuce and an eventual hold. Cubas’ hold evened the set at 4-4, and the Gamecocks kept things rolling with a break of serve to take a 5-4 lead. Serving for the match, Campos closed out his game with a service winner.

Campos and Cubas will face Oklahoma’s Andrei Daescu and Costin Paval (No. 18) at 1 p.m. on Friday. Click here to follow the match live.