No. 26 Alabama narrowly defeated No. 18 South Carolina in a 4-2 win on Sunday afternoon. The Crimson Tide is now 14-9 overall and 4-7 heading into the final match of the regular season.

“Today was a full team effort,” head coach George Husack said. “In doubles, [Sophomore] Sam Fischer stepped up big. In singles, we had several guys step up big as well.”

In the first match of the doubles point, senior Mazen Osama and sophomore Patrick Kaukovalta started their match off with a service break in the first game, forcing South Carolina to play from behind the entire match. Osama and Kaukovalta, the 28^th-ranked doubles pair in the country, went on to win 6-3.

Having lost the past four doubles point in as many matches, Husack made a change to the doubles lineup by debuting a new No. 3 pairing of junior Zhe Zhou and Fischer to provide a spark for the Crimson Tide. In similar fashion to court No.1, Zhou and Fischer controlled the match the entire set by setting an intense tone early and defeated their opponents 6-3 to clinch the doubles point for Alabama.

“We tried something new just to try to create energy,” Husack said of the new pairing. “Sam has been doing all the right things and bringing energy. He lifted Zhe to another level and lifted all of us. We haven’t had successful doubles lately and everyone on all three courts stepped up.”

In the singles matches, Alabama relied on the bottom three courts to propel them to victory. After Osama and Kaukovalta lost their singles matches, Zhou responded with a dominant 6-1, 6-4 win to tie the match at 2-2.

On court No. 4, junior Riccardo Roberto easily won his first set 6-2. Roberto continued his dominance into the second set by going up 3-1, but six games later the set was tied 5-5 with his opponent on serve. He did not fall victim to the pressure as he broke his opponent’s serve and then won the next game to win his match 6-2, 7-5 and give Alabama a 3-2 lead.

“Riccardo felt pressure [on Friday],” Husack said. “He just wanted to do it so bad for the team, but he and the other guys were preaching ‘you play like you practice and practice like you play.’”

Similarly, sophomore Jeremy Gschwendtner won his first set 6-2 and was up 4-1 in the second set, but his opponent fought back to take the lead 5-4. Gschwendtner broke his opponent’s serve and won his serve to take the 6-5 lead. But the next game, his opponent forced a tiebreaker. The tiebreak was back and forth with neither player going up by more than one point until Gschwendtner won two consecutive points to win 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) and clinch the match for Alabama.

“It was down to me,” Gschwendtner said. “George [Husack] tells us to focus on ourselves and that’s what I did. I had a feeling, but was unsure of what the score was, but kept focusing on getting the win [on my court].”

Alabama will play its final regular season match at home against Arkansas on Thursday at 6 P.M. at the Alabama Tennis Stadium.