Tad Maclean and Finn Murgett began their NCAA championship run with a convincing doubles win Monday afternoon at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
The Tiger tandem, ranked No. 26 nationally, defeated No. 25 Ryan Fishback and Jordan Chrysostom of Virginia Tech in the opening round match. Murgett and Maclean took the first set 6-2. The next set was closer, with the pairs tied at 3-3, before the Auburn duo pulled away for a 6-4 margin of victory in the second set.
"The first round is always the toughest match to get past," Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds said. "Tad and Finn came out with a great sense of urgency and we able to get ahead early and set the tone for how they wanted the match to be played. This team when playing as one cohesive unit can beat anyone in this tournament."
Tuesday, Murgett and Maclean will face the winner of Cesar Bourgois/Gabriel Diallo (Kentucky) and Tristan McCormick/Axel Nefve (Notre Dame). Murgett and Maclean were tied with Bourgois and Diallo 5-5 in their unfinished match back in February.
The duo of Maclean, a junior from Cornwall, England, and Murgett, a sophomore from Holmfirth, England, entered the NCAA championships having gone 11-10 this spring at No. 1 doubles, facing 11 ranked teams, and 16-13 for the year.
Sunday in opening round NCAA singles play, Auburn's Tyler Stice fell to Illinois' Aleksander Kovacevic by a 6-3, 6-2 score. Kovacevic is now in the Round of 16 after a Monday win over Texas' Eliot Spizzirri.
All matches at the NCAA Championships are best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and a 7-point tiebreaker at six-games-all will be used for all matches. In doubles, a 10-point match tiebreaker will be played in lieu of a third set.
Live scoring is available via TennisTicker; fans can also watch all matches throughout the tournament by downloading the TennisOne app for free on mobile devices.
