The No. 7 ranked Emory men's tennis team traveled north to Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota to compete in the ITA Team Indoor National Championships this weekend. The Eagles won the tournament last year and made the trip with hopes to defend their title. Slated as the No. 4 seed in the draw, the Eagles were pitted against No. 5 seed Denison in the opening round. After Denison took the match's doubles point, the Eagles could not climb out of the early hole as they fell, 5-2.
The two squads got things started with doubles play, with one point up for grabs. Freshman
Ajay Kartik and junior
Dean Kamenev teamed up on court one, but were on the wrong side of a 6-0 sweep to see Emory fall behind early.
Graduate students
Efe Comu and
Charley Force handled business on court three to even things up, winning their match by a score of 6-3. Comu and Force split the first two games to even things up at 1-1 before winning four straight points to take a 5-1 lead and coast to a win, giving the Eagles a shot at the doubles point.
It was sophomore
Christian Liew and freshman
Ruilin Feng on court two, looking to steal the doubles point from Denison. While the tandem of underclassmen took an early 2-1 lead, Denison's Jacob Patterson and Colin Gramley went on to win five of the next seven points to win the match, 6-4, and give Denison a 1-0 lead over Emory.
With Denison taking the doubles point, the Eagles needed to take four of the six singles matches to advance to the semifinals. Kamenev made quick work of his opponent over on court four, winning in straight sets (6-1, 6-3) to bring things level at one point apiece.
Despite Kamenev evening the score, Denison ripped off three singles match wins shortly thereafter to clinch the win for the Big Red. On court one, Comu fell in straight sets (3-6, 2-6), as did Force on Court five (2-6, 5-7), and junior
John Lasanajak on court six (3-6, 4-6). With four points in hand, the Big Red had clinched a berth to the semifinal round.
After Denison had secured a win, Feng won his bout on court two. The opening set required a tiebreaker, with Feng earning a narrow win in the opening frame at 7(7)-6(5). Feng dominated the second set, winning, 6-2, to earn the Eagles' second point of the match.
Feng's doubles partner, Liew, also concluded his match on court three after Denison had clinched. Liew took the first set, 6-3, before playing to a tiebreaker in the second set. Liew was ultimately swept in the tiebreaker, though, seeing him advance to a superset to decide a winner on court three. His opponent, Denison's Kael Shalin Shah, took six of the first eight points in the superset and Liew was unable to surmount the early deficit. His final line came to (6-3, 6(0)-7(7), 5-10).
The Eagles will now move to the consolation portion of the bracket, with their next match slated for 7:30 PM ET tomorrow, Saturday, February 22
nd. Emory will take on the loser of the match between the top-seeded Chicago Maroons and the eighth-seeded Gustavus Adolphus Gusties.
