TULSA, Okla. – The Florida State men’s tennis team competed at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa this week, led by Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc who advanced to the singles Round of 16.
“We showed that we have a lot of good players, and we showed that we’re one of the better teams in the country,” head coach Dwayne Hultquist said. “Having 10 ranked wins, beating some top seeds and people that are ranked high shows that we have made some good progress.”
Cornut-Chauvinc, the 105th-ranked singles player in the preseason rankings, entered the tournament in the qualifying round where he won three straight matches, including victories over No. 75 Gavin Young from Michigan and No. 125 David Stevenson from Memphis.
In the first round of the main draw, Cornut-Chauvinc was paired up against the No. 2 seed in the tournament and No. 3 ranked player in the country, Cannon Kingsley from Ohio State. After dropping the first set, Cornut-Chauvinc won nine straight games from 3-4 to close out the second set and sweep the third.
Cornut-Chauvinc earned his fourth ranked win of the tournament and fifth overall against No. 79 Tyler Zink from Oklahoma State to advance to the Round of 16. He is the first Seminole since Lucas Poullain in 2017 to advance to the Round of 16 at the All-American Championships.
The Round of 16 matchup featured the 2022 preseason top newcomer, Ethan Quinn from Georgia, against the 2021 preseason top newcomer in Cornut-Chauvinc. The two battled in a close match, but Cornut-Chauvinc fell just short in three sets.
“Antoine showed why he’s one of the best players in college tennis,” Hultquist added. “I thought that he played better as the tournament went on. He lost in a very tough match. He beat the No. 2 seed and had multiple other ranked wins.”
Florida State excelled as a program in this tournament. The Seminoles were one of only two programs to see two players advance from singles qualifying to the main draw. Florida State was one of five schools with three players competing in the singles main draw.
Collectively, Florida State finished 21-11 in singles and earned nine wins over ranked singles opponents. Youcef Rihane accounted for three of these as he advanced to the singles main draw after ranked wins over No. 55 Ryan Fishback from Virginia Tech and No. 104 Noah Berry from California Polytechnic. He then defeated No. 22 Filippo Moroni from Wake Forest in the main draw consolation round.
“I’m very…