{"id":192660,"date":"2026-03-15T18:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T18:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T18:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T18:34:08","slug":"owls-close-florida-swing-with-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192660\/","title":{"rendered":"Owls Close Florida Swing with Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 The Rice men’s tennis team closed its Florida road trip with a 4-3 win over South Florida on Sunday.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Owls improved to 8-6 overall and are 8-0 when winning the doubles point this season. The duo of Petro Kuzmenok<\/a> and Santiago Navarro<\/a> opened play with a 6-1 win over Huggo Car and Effore Danesi. On court three, Timeo Gaillard and Elijah Cham defeated Tommy Czaplinski<\/a> and Rafael Botran<\/a> 6-3. Yair Sarouk<\/a> and Kabeer Kapasi<\/a> clinched the doubles point with a 6-3 victory over James Newton and Toto Llanes.
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\nSouth Florida evened the match when Kapasi fell to Stepan Mruzek 6-3, 6-3. Kuzmenok regained the lead for the Owls with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Car. On court five, Guhi Verdese defeated Czaplinski 6-3, 6-1, before Navarro topped Cham 6-3, 6-1.
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\nGabriel Porras<\/a> clinched the match for the Owls with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Llanes, marking his second match-clinching victory of the season. Play continued beyond the clinch on court four, where Botran fell to Agustin Cuellar 7-6, 6-2.
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\nThe Owls will face Tulane in New Orleans on Friday, March 22. The match will be streamed on ESPN+.
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\nRESULTS

\nDOUBLES
\nP. Kuzmenok\/S. Navarro (RICE) def. H. Car\/E. Danesi (USF) 6-1
\nY. Sarouk\/K. Kapasi (RICE) def. J. Newton\/T. Llanes (USF) 6-3
\nT. Gaillard\/E. Cham (USF) def. T. Czaplinski\/R. Botran (RICE) 6-3
\nOrder of Finish: 1, 3, 2
\n\u00a0
\nSINGLES
\nP. Kuzmenok (RICE) def. H. Car (USF) 6-3, 6-2
\nS. Navarro (RICE) def. E. Cham (USF) 6-3, 6-1
\nS. Mruzek (USF) def. K. Kapasi (RICE) 6-3, 6-3
\nA. Cuellar (USF) def. R. Botran (RICE) 7-6, 6-2
\nG. Verdese (USF) def. T. Czaplinski (RICE) 6-3, 6-1
\nG. Porras (RICE) def. T. Llanes (USF) 7-5, 6-3
\nOrder of Finish: 3, 1, 5, 2, 6, 4
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 The Rice men’s tennis team closed its Florida road trip with a 4-3 win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-192660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}