WEST POINT, NY – The Rider University men's tennis team opened the Spring season with a 4-3 win over Sacred Heart and a 4-0 setback to Army West Point Friday evening. With the split, the Broncs move to 2-2 on the year.
Against Sacred Heart, the Broncs pulled out the doubles point with a 7-6 win at No. 3.
Dhruv Tangri (Punjab, India/Cambridge International School) and
Cooper Dillon (Brisbane, Australia/Laurel Springs) got things started with a 6-2 victory at No. 1 over Lefteri Apostolou and Enrique Laennec-Baffrey. The Pioneers evened the score with a 6-3 win at No. 2, before
Stavros Hadjivarnava (Moutagiaka, Cyrus/British College of Gava) and
Roger Martinez (Girona, Spain/Saint George's School) pulled out a 7-6 win over Antoine Hernandez and Paul Goncalves at No. 3 to secure the doubles point for Rider.
Six highly-competitive singles matches followed, with each team winning three. The Broncs got a 7-6, 7-6 win from Tangri over Apostolou at No. 1, while Martinez came back from down 5-4 in the third set to defeat Hernandez, 6-1, 0-6, 7-5, at No. 3. With Sacred Heart having secured wins at Nos. 2, 4, and 6, the match came down to No. 5, where
Lucas Flotta (Belle Mead, NJ/The Pennington School) got past Darius Eftekhar, 6-3, 0-6, 7-5, to clinch the match for Rider.
"A lot of heart from the men in this one," said Rider Head Coach
Tom Battaglia. "They could have mailed it in but just fought hard to keep one more ball in. Proud of the effort to keep grinding. Sometimes when you don't have your 'A' game, you need to find another gear and we did that today."
Rider was competitive against Army West Point.
Jake Grimes (Atlanta, GA/Johnson Ferry Christian Academy) and
Nathan Slattery (Nenagh, Ireland) took their No. 2 doubles match against Daniel Zhou and Daniel Choi, 7-5. But the Black Knights took a pair of close decisions at Nos. 1 and 3, including a 7-6 (3) win from Michael Zhang and Paul Roberts over the Broncs'
Giacomo Ghitti (Brescia, Italy/Marco Polo) and
Matthew Griscti (Madliena, Malta) to clinch the point.
In singles, the Black Knights won the first three flights to finish in straight sets, clinching the match. The Broncs were competitive, however, with Griscti and Slattery losing a set by a 7-5 margin at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. Dillon (No. 3), Ghitti (No. 5) and Ibragim Turgambekov (No. 6) all splitting sets in their singles matches before they were halted. In his Rider debut, Turgambekov led 3-1 in the third set against Roberts when it was stopped with the team match no longer in doubt.
"Awesome day all around," said Battaglia. "Great effort going into a huge day Sunday against Richmond and NJIT. We just hope to keep the momentum going."
The Broncs return to action Sunday, when they take on Richmond (8 a.m.) and NJIT (2 p.m.) in West Point, NY.
