No. 14 UCF Too Tall For Visiting Mercer

Sunday, January 18

Lake Nona, Fla.

5 p.m.

Mercer University

#14 Central Florida

1/18/2026 8:23:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Todd Anderson, anderson_t02@mercer.edu

LAKE NONA, Fla. – Sophomore Shingo Masuda cruised to a straight-sets win and junior Esteban Davila Gasser won by retirement to help visiting Mercer log its first team points of the season, but 14^th-ranked UCF owned the highlights the rest of the way out in a 5-2 win over the Bears on Sunday at the USTA National Campus.

The setback kept the Bears (0-2) winless in the early part of their traditional spring campaign, with both contests coming on the road against Top 25 teams. The nationally-ranked Knights (4-0), who blanked South Florida earlier on Sunday, finished off a season-opening four-match home stand with an unblemished record.

UCF needed just 28 minutes to secure the doubles point as Paul Colin and Yassine Dlimi yielded a lone point in a 6-1 victory on Court No. 1, and Lusa Hotze/Nicolas Oliveira clinched the team point with a 6-3 win on Court No. 3 four minutes later.

Masuda's 6-2, 6-2 win on Court No. 5 helped the Orange & Black half the first two singles results of the evening, but the Knights cruised after that. Dlimi prevailed in straight sets in the featured singles matchup, and Colin clinched the team victory with a 6-4, 6-1 win on Court No. 2.

Davila Gasser dropped a tough 6-4 decision in his opening set at No. 6 singles with UCF's Kai-Luca Ampaw, but won the first five games of the second set before Ampaw retired with an injury.

Mercer will close out a season-opening three-match road trip on January 25 when the Bears head to Jacksonville, Fla., to lock horns with North Florida (1-3) at the UNF Tennis Complex. Start time is slated for 1 p.m.