Tad Maclean and Finn Murgett continued their NCAA championship run with an exciting three-set doubles win in the Round of 16 Tuesday evening at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
The Tiger tandem, ranked No. 26 nationally, defeated No. 22 Tristan McCormick and Axel Nefve of Notre Dame in a match that went down to a third-set tiebreaker. The Auburn duo held the upper hand in the first set, winning 6-4, but the Irish countered with a 6-1 advantage in the second set.
Playing longer best-of-three-sets doubles matches for the NCAA championships, the third period becomes a 10-point tiebreaker, and Murgett and Maclean were ready, jumping out to a 6-3 lead. McCormick and Nefve managed to tie the third period at 7-7, but from that point on, it was all Auburn and the Tigers clinched the match with a 10-7 tiebreaker score.
"I'm very happy for these guys. It's a huge accomplishment to become an All-American, and Tad and Finn are so deserving of that honor," Auburn head coach Bobby Reynolds said.
"Today, they battled through many emotional ups and downs throughout the course of the match. They accepted that their traditional game plan would need altering in order to be successful against this very successful Notre Dame pair, and Finn and Tad executed the game plan perfectly down the stretch. Now another tough opponent lies ahead!"
Wednesday in the NCAA quarterfinals, Murgett and Maclean will face No. 10-rated Riley Smith and Daniel Cuikerman of Southern California; the Trojans upset No. 2 Alastair Gray and Luc Fomba of TCU in the Round of 16. That match is set for 5 p.m. Central time.
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.
Maclean and Murgett have earned All-America status, the first Auburn players to do so since Andreas Mies and Alex Stamchev in doubles in 2012.
Live scoring of the NCAA championships is available via TennisTicker; fans can also watch all matches throughout the tournament by downloading the TennisOne app for free on mobile devices.
