Southeastern University men's tennis waits anticipatedly for an exciting week of games after advancing to 12-3 on the year with their tenth straight win, defeating Ave Maria University last Friday.
Following two impressive shutout victories, the Fire will begin their week with Sun Conference rival St. Thomas University down in Miami Gardens. The Bobcats are 0-3 thus far on the season with losses to Lynn University, Barry University, and most recently #3 Keiser University.
The Fire walk into this match with a single game advantage over the Bobcats in the all time matchup, 7-6, and have won the past three. For the Fire this will be their first time at St. Thomas since 2021.
The Fire boast two ranked individuals and two ranked teams heading into this contest, #15
Bruno Pessoa, and #21
Diego Menendez who both saw jumps in their personal rankings. For doubles Pessoa and Menendez form the #7 team in the NAIA, and
Mark Griffin and
Piero Fernandez joined the ranked at #30.
On Saturday it is a top six showdown in West Palm Beach as the Seahawks of #3 Keiser University play host to the #6 Fire. The Seahawks are a titan in the NAIA, picking up some impressive wins, a 5-2 victory over #2 in Division II Barry University, and the recent 4-0 shutout of St. Thomas. However, they were handed a 6-1 loss by #1 in Division II University of Indianapolis for their first loss of the season.
The 6-1 Seahawks have two ranked doubles teams, and two ranked singles players. Soufiane El Mesbahi is ranked #5, and Shaheed Alam is ranked #10 overall. On the doubles, Esbahi and Alam form the #20 team in the NAIA, whereas Heber Santos and Didrik Liljekvist create the #23 team overall.
On Sunday the Fire return to Miami Gardens for a non conference top ten bout against #10 Xavier University of Louisiana. The Gold Rush stand at 6-7 and come in off of a matchup against #20 SCAD Savannah. Two players are ranked in singles for Xavier, they are Nereo Suarez at #27 and Julius Hell at #46. Doubles is where the Gold Rush are most powerful with #2 in the NAIA Julius Hell and VanDer Woody, #8 Jacobi Bain and Nereo Suarez, and #36 Dedric Ray and Ivan Vazquez.
The match at St. Thomas is at 10 a.m. on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday the first serve is at 2 p.m. To finish the road trip, the Fire take on Xavier (La.) on Sunday and the time is TBA.
