Mercer Comes Up Just Short In Road Battle With Samford

Tuesday, April 7

Birmingham, Ala.

2 p.m.

Mercer University

#75 Samford

Mercer Comes Up Just Short In Road Battle With Samford

4/7/2026 6:32:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Todd Anderson, anderson_t02@mercer.edu

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alex Aldaz, Hod'Abalo Isak Padio and Nemanja Stefanovic all prevailed in epic three-set singles matchups, but red-hot Samford grabbed the early doubles point to key a 4-3 win over the visiting Bears on Tuesday afternoon at the Pat M. Courington Tennis Pavilion.

The setback snapped a four-match win streak for the Bears (8-12, 3-3 SoCon) who are set to wrap up regular season play this weekend in Macon. It was the eighth win in the last nine outings for the Bulldogs (14-6, 6-1) who improved to 8-2 at home with the triumph.

Lukas Dvorak and Cooper Errey tacked up their 14^th-straight doubles win on Court No. 3 to get the action going early for the hosts, but the rest of doubles action did not go quite as fluid for Samford. Padio and Stefanovic used a 7-3 tiebreaker to knot things up with a 7-6 win in the featured doubles matchup, but the Bulldogs claimed the early 1-0 lead on the team scoreboard when Sebastian Harrison/Vitorio Sardinha fought off a hard charge by Mercer's Howell Burns/Esteban Davila Gasser before prevailing, 7-5.

Dvorak, Martin Schwartzman and Sebastian Harrison all registered straight-sets wins in singles action to give the Bulldogs a 4-0 lead that clinched the team win, but the Bears continued to scratch despite the outcome. Stefanovic and Padio both dropped the second set of their matchups on Court Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, but still claimed wins.

Padio ousted Darcy Nicholls for the second time this season with a 6-3 score in the deciding third set, while Stefanovic topped Sandeep Mohandoss for the second time in the last five months with a 7-3 third-set tiebreaker.

Amid the smoke coming from the first two singles courts, Aldaz turned in his third-straight singles win with a 10-6 break point.

The Bears will close out the regular season portion of their 2025-26 schedule on Saturday when they take on Southern Conference foe The Citadel (5-22, 0-5) on Senior Day at the Copelan Tennis Complex. First serves are scheduled for 1 p.m. and admission is free.