ROCK HILL, S.C. – For the first time in his Eagles career, sophomore Marc Janse (Zeewolde, Netherlands) has been awarded All-SAC honors as announced by the South Atlantic Conference Wednesday. Janse was named to the 2021 All-SAC First-Team all-singles team after his impressive 2021 regular season. This is the first All-SAC for a Carson-Newman men's tennis athlete since Joao Pedro Oliveira was named to the First Team all-singles squad following the 2016-17 season.
Heading into the first round of the 2021 SAC Men's Tennis Tournament, Janse is a perfect 11-0 in SAC competition including wins over both Wingate and Queens. In all of 2021, the sophomore has gone 13-4 overall which set a new CNMT program record in the process for single-season wins in singles action. The previous record was Jonathan Allen's record of 12 wins during the 2013 season. Janse became the record-holder with his last match against Tusculum and collecting a 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 victory against the Pioneers.
For Janse, he not only set the new program record for most singles wins in a single season, but he became the first CNMT athlete to go undefeated in SAC singles play since 2010. This is also the last season the Eagles advanced past the regular season and faced Mars Hill in the SAC Quarterfinals.
When looking at the SAC as a whole after the 2021 regular season, Janse joins Leon Huck of Tusculum (10-0 at #4), Eduardo Cecere (10-0 at #3) and Roy Stepanov (9-0 from #3/4/5) as the only SAC men's tennis athletes to go undefeated in conference.
Meanwhile, Janse is joined on the All-SAC First Team by Rhodri Atkinson of Lenoir-Rhyne (SAC Player of the Year), Dmitry Bezborodov of Tusculum, Edoardo Bottino of Queens, Enrico Giacomini of Wingate, and Paolo Bompieri of Queens. Janse squared off with Bompieri during the April 3 matchup between C-N and Queens, and defended home court with a 7-5, 4-6 10-8 victory.
So far in his two years as an Eagle, Janse has compiled an overall record of 19-8 which places him with the eighth-most victories for an Eagle career. With his career record of 19-8, Janse currently sits with the highest win percentage in CNMT history at 0.704 with sophomore teammate Ids Waterbolk (Bennekom, Netherlands) sitting at second with a win percentage of 0.593 (16-11) during his years in Mossy Creek. Janse currently is second for single-season win percentage in singles at 0.765 which is behind Waterbolk's mark of 0.800 during last season.
Janse and the Eagles will be in action for the first round of the 2021 SAC Men's Tennis Tournament on Thursday as they square off with the Queens (N.C.) Royals from Sumter, S.C. This is the first tournament appearance for Carson-Newman men's tennis since 2010 when they faced off with Mars Hill in the SAC Quarterfinals. First serve between the programs is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. from the Palmetto Tennis Complex in Sumter.
Be sure to keep up to date on all things Carson-Newman men's tennis at cneagles.com and via all social media accounts.
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