MEN'S TENNIS SWEEPS DOUBLEHEADER IN PITTSBURGH

Friday, February 19

Pittsburgh, Pa.

12:00 p.m.

James Madison University

Duquesne

2/20/2010 2:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Feb. 19, 2010 - The James Madison men's tennis team swept a pair of non-conference matches in Pittsburgh on Friday. JMU opened with a 4-3 win over Duquesne before sweeping Robert Morris 7-0 in game two.

The Dukes improved to 4-3 with the wins while Duquesne dropped to 3-6 and RMU fell to 3-7.

In the second match of the day, JMU jumped out to a 1-0 lead over Robert Morris by sweeping doubles play. The nation's 38th-ranked doubles team senior Mike Smith (Fairfax Station, Va./Robinson) and junior Matt King (Lorton, Va./Robinson) led the way with an 8-1 win over David Pinto and Igor Neves, while freshman partners Greg Vladimirsky (Coral Gables, Fla./Broward Virtual) and Stephen Hardy (Fairfax, Va./Robinson) picked up their own 8-1 win in No. 2 doubles over Liran Braun and Aaron Haas. Junior Yaroslav Voznenko (Kherson, Ukraine/Kherson Technical School) and sophomore Ville Maaranen (Joensuu, Finland/Joensuun lukio) completed the sweep with an 8-6 win over Andre Coiro and Grigory Sovko at No. 3.

In singles play, Madison continued to dominate as no Duke lost more than four games in a single set. Sophomore Tommi Nissinen (Oulu, Finland/Kastellin lukio) set the bar for Madison with a 6-1, 6-1 win to improve to 12-5 in singles play this year. Vladimirsky improved to 5-2 in singles play during the spring and 11-4 overall with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Sovko.

Sophomore Jovan Milic (Belgrade, Serbia/Belgrade Sports School) saw his first action of spring play on Friday and improved to 7-2 overall in 2009-10 with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Braun.

In Friday's first match, Duquesne took two of three doubles matches to jump ahead 1-0, but JMU took four of the six singles matches to pick up the win.

DU's top doubles duo of Steve Herchko and Mark Maciuch knocked off Madison's Smith and King 8-5 at No. 1 while DU clinched the doubles point at No. 2 with an 8-3 win by Jeremy McClelland and Gustavo Villares.

JMU's lone doubles victory came from Hardy and Voznenko in an 8-7 (