YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Denison men's tennis continued their opening weekend to the spring season on Sunday afternoon when they traveled to Youngstown, Ohio and fell to 14th-ranked Carnegie Mellon by a final score of 6-3.
On the doubles courts, the Tartans opened with an early lead on the No. 2 court when Ray Boppana and Robert Levin posted an 8-3 win over Akshat Agarwal and Vlad Rotnov. The Big Red rebounded on the top court when Tim Cianciola and Jack Bulger took down Joshua Pinckney and Raahil Doshi, 8-5, but CMU entered singles play with a 2-1 advantage after Jacob Dennen and Hayden McNamara suffered an 8-7 (4) tie-breaking loss to Sam Gibson and Jonathan Nottingham.
In singles action, the Tartans opened with three-straight wins from Nottingham, Pinckney, and Clark Safran on the No. 4-6 courts to secure the team win for CMU. Denison refused to go down lightly as Rotnov responded with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Levin in No. 2 play and Bulger pushed past Gibson 7-6 (6), 3-6, 10-4 in three sets.
The Big Red will return to action next Saturday, Feb. 22 when they travel to Nicholasville, Ky. for a 2 p.m. matchup with Rhodes College.
