MESA, AZ - It’s been quite the week for No. 16 seeds Gabriel Tardio and Andrei Daescu. They’ve now taken down three of the top eight seeds in men’s doubles with their 11-9, 11-8 victory over Riley Newman and Thomas Wilson.

And they still have yet to drop a game at Arizona Athletic Grounds.

It can be easy to lose focus and falter mentally upon securing big win after big win, but Tardio and Daescu have been able to keep their level high all week.

The key? Confidence.

“We know that we can beat anybody, so for us it’s not surprising,” Tardio said.

In this match, though, it was the six-foot-four Daescu’s height and length at the kitchen line that proved to be a difference-maker.

On a few occasions, the former Romanian tennis pro was able to catch Newman sliding to the middle and go back behind him.

“I try to use that to my advantage and apply a lot of pressure at the kitchen line,” Daescu explained. “It’s not easy to do that against Riley and Thomas because they’re extremely good counter punchers and very fast. I knew I had to mix it up quite a bit on Riley because he covers a lot of the middle, and fortunately for us, I think I did a pretty good job of that today.”

Despite this string of wins against some of the game’s best, the pair know that they have some more work to do ahead of Championship Sunday.

“We’re gonna enjoy the next few hours and as soon as the next semifinal is on, go in and watch and hopefully take some good notes and shift our focus to tomorrow,” Daescu shared.

The crowd favorite in Mesa will face either No. 2 seeds JW Johnson and Dylan Frazier or No. 3 seeds James Ignatowich and Matt Wright for the men’s doubles crown.