NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk State men's tennis dropped a hard-fought home match with visiting UC Riverside, losing 4-2 on Wednesday at the NSU Tennis Complex.
Doubles play set the tone for the afternoon, as the point was decided by a tiebreaker victory by the Highlanders (13-12) in the third and final match.
UCR opened the match with a 6-4 victory by Filip Engstrom and Kyle McCann in second-seeded doubles. The duo defeated
Vini Da Silva and
Ignacio Guevel.
Andres Alcaraz and
Dan Dumitrascu kept the Spartans (5-3) alive with a timely 6-3 win over Pawel Jankowiak and Vignesh Subramanyan in the top-seeded doubles flight.
With the doubles point hanging in the balance, the third-seeded match went the distance. Nabil Abdallah and Anderson Ju narrowly edged out
Flavian Fernandez and
Agustin Carrizo, 7-6, to give the Highlanders the early 1-0 advantage.
Subramanyan put UCR ahead 2-0 with a 6-2, 6-3 straight-sets victory over Guevel in the sixth-seeded singles flight. However, the Spartans tied the match at 2-2 with back-to-back wins at No. 2 and No. 5 singles.
Alcaraz gave NSU its first point of the day with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Engstrom on the second court. Carrizo then knotted the score with a three-set win over Gilbert Chung on the fifth court. Carrizo and Chung split the first two sets, 6-0, 0-6, but Carrizo prevailed 6-4 in the decisive third set.
UCR eked out a pair of closely-contested matches to clinch the victory. Abdallah put the Highlanders on the brink with a 7-6, 6-4 result over Dumitrascu in fourth-seeded singles.
The focus then shifted to the third court, where McCann and Fernandez battled back-and-fourth in a three-set thriller. McCann jumped ahead early with a 6-2 win in the first set, but Fernandez responded by taking the second set 6-3. With a 6-4 win in the third set, McCann sealed the win for the Highlanders.
Da Silva was in the early stages of his third set against Benjamin Kichherr when the match ended. The two split the first two sets, 7-6, 3-6, and Da Silva was ahead 2-1 in the final set.
The Spartans begin MEAC competition this Saturday with a 1 p.m. road contest at Howard.
