LEXINGTON, Va. (March 10, 2024) – In a matchup between two teams that appeared in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament a year ago, the No. 10 Denison University men's tennis team started off its Spring Break action with a close 5-4 win over No. 15 Johns Hopkins University on Sunday in a neutral-site match played at Washington & Lee University. It was the first-ever meeting between the Big Red and the Blue Jays.
Notable Results:
Doubles
- Andy Mackler and Jacob Patterson defeated Joshua Kim and Allen Gong 8-1 at No. 3 doubles and Zachary Portnoy and Kael Shah won 8-2 over George Jiang and Pranav Gadiraju 8-2 at No. 2 doubles.
- In the top spot, Colin Gramley and Ethan Green had to dig down deep to pull out an 8-7 (7-3) tiebreak win over Daniel Ardila and Marco Azar.
- Each of those doubles wins would turn out to be very important for the Big Red in the end.
Singles
- Patterson defeated Gong, who is ranked No. 26 in NCAA Division III in singles, by a score of 6-4, 6-2 at No. 1 singles. That made it a 4-0 Big Red lead, and then up 4-1, Mackler pulled out the clinching point with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 three-set victory over Hanyu Liu at No. 4 singles.
- Green came up short in a three-setter, 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, against Chakor Rajendra at No. 3 singles.
- In the final two singles matches, both Ryan Patrick and Portnoy battled to third-set super tiebreakers. Portnoy fell 7-6 (7-2), 3-6, 1-0 (12-10) against Azar in the six-hole while Patrick lost 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 1-0 (10-5) to Kim in the five-spot.
Records:
- Denison improved to 4-2 with what was its third straight win and second win of the season against a fellow nationally-ranked team.
- Johns Hopkins, which went 19-5 last season, suffered its first loss of the year at 4-1.
Next Up: On day two of its Spring Break trip on Monday, March 11, Denison will face the hosts from No. 19 Washington & Lee University. Then two days later, all roads point to a huge matchup against new No. 1-ranked team in NCAA Division III, Emory University, on Wednesday, March 13, in Atlanta, Georgia.
