Sports > February 21, 2008

By LK Davey | Staff writer

The Wake Forest men’s tennis was outstanding Feb. 16-17. The team completed a marathon of three matches in two days and finished the weekend 3-0.

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Junior Cory Parr prepares to serve the ball during a recent match. He led the team to a 3-0 weekend, defeating East Tennessee, Brown and South Carolina. (Andrew Imboden/Old Gold & Black)

The Deacons beat East Tennessee and Brown in back-to-back matches on Feb. 16, and they wrapped up the weekend with a win over Southeastern Conference competitor South Carolina on Feb. 17 at the Indoor Tennis Center.

The weekend started out rocky against the East Tenn Bucs by dropping the doubles point and falling behind in three singles matches.

Wake’s No. 1 and 2 singles, junior Cory Parr and sophomore Steve Forman, started slow and allowed their Bucs competitors to gain 4-1 leads in the first set.

Parr changed pace when he broke serve twice to take a 5-4 advantage.

At the next court, Forman rebounded and managed to finish his match 5-4.

Both Demon Deacon netters earned tie-breaker wins and added two points in the 4-2 Wake Forest match victory.

Sophomore Jason Morganstern had a frustrating finish; he lost the first set tie-breaker but came back with a second set win of 6-4.

The match was called when Morganstern had a 4-0 game lead in the final set with a 40-0 point advantage because Wake clinched the overall win at No. 2 singles. Morganstern was finally able to earn a singles win against Brown’s No. 4 just two hours later in the Demon Deacons’ 6-1 victory over the Bears.

Morganstern finished 6-4, 6-2, while Parr, junior Carlos Salmon, senior Mariusz Adamski and freshman Iain Atkinson also earned straight set wins. Forman finished 7-6, 3-6, 6-0.

Sunday’s match was close; freshman Jonathon Wolff had his first weekend singles win, Parr and Adamski completed their singles weekend unbeaten with straight set wins at No. 1 and 3, respectively.

Forman pulled a three-set upset over ranked No. 74 Pedro Campos. The match finished with a Wake 4-2 victory.

Atkinson was pleased with the weekend’s results, especially against South Carolina.

“Our toughest match this weekend was South Carolina,” Atkinson said. “Everyone had to be on top of their game for us to come away with a win from that match. Their ranking of 59th in the nation is not a true reflection of how good they are. The Deacs played great as a team this weekend. Unfortunately we didn’t win any doubles points in our three matches this weekend, which meant everyone had to pull together as a team in each match to win.”

The wins earned the Demon Deacons a season record of 6-2, with a match coming up this weekend against the Lousiville Cardinals at Wake Forest.

This will be the team’s fourth straight match at home, and Atkinson says that this is an element the team is taking full advantage of.

“Playing at home I find is a huge advantage. I think our record so far this semester proves this too. When we play at home the team feeds off the crowd and seems to play with more determination and fight,” Atkinson said.

The match will take place on Feb. 23 at home.