FLUSHING, N.Y. – The Queens College men's tennis 2022 season got underway Saturday evening as the Knights hosted the Southern New Hampshire University Penmen in Flushing in a tough regional matchup.
The Knights (0-1 overall) would start the match on a high note winning the doubles points, while four singles matches went into the third set before the Penmen (1-0 overall) took five singles matches to defeat Queens to the final score of 5-2.
Doubles Competition
Head coach
Somadi Druker debuted three new doubles lineups to start the season and it would pay dividends for the Knights. The Knights #2 doubles duo of sophomore
Omar El Shehawey (Cairo, Egypt) / senior
Moritz Borges (Hunxe, Germany) knocked off nationally ranked #11 and #1 in the East region Penmen duo of Jonathan Berling / Fernando Torres to the score of 6-4.
Queens would clinch the double points and go up 1-0 as the third doubles duo of junior
Mariano Bibiloni (La Plata, Argentina ) / sophomore
Tim Ostheimer (Frankfurt, Germany) defeated the pair of Cade Nadeau / Boris Stastny to the final score of 6-4.
The Knights would sweep doubles competition as the number one pair of junior
Kareem Rashad (Alexandria, Egypt) / junior
Lucas Demuth (Buenos Aires, Argentina) needed a tiebreaker to defeat the number one Penmen pair of Thomas Guy / Emmanuel Vacalares to the score of 7-6
(7-3).
Singles Competition
Queens would go up 2-0 as Borges knocked off Stastny to the score of 6-0, 6-4 at fifth singles before the Penmen cut the lead down to 2-1 as #5 Guy defeated #11 Demuth 6-3, 6-4 at second singles.
The final four singles matches would go into the third set setting up a thrilling final in the season opener for both teams. Freshman
Philipp Uhde (Heidelberg, Germany) made his debut at sixth singles against Nadeau and took the first set 7-5 before Nadeau tied the match winning the second set in a tiebreaker 7-6
(7-4) to force a third set. But Uhde would drop his first single competition of the season as he fell to the final score of 6-0.
With the match tied 2-2, in a battle of ITA East Region ranked #18 Torres vs. #19 Shehawey, the sophomore Shehawey would take the first set 7-5 before Torres battled back and won the last two sets to the score of 6-4, 6-3.
The final two matches set up a thrilling final to the match. At first singles, it was a battle of nationally-ranked individuals of #47/3 Rashad vs. #37/2 Berling. Rashad would strike first winning the first set to the score of 7-6
(8-6) before Berling tied the match winning the second set to the score of 6-2. In the final set, Rashad battled back from being down 5-2 to tie the match 5-5 before eventually dropping the final set to the score of 7-5 as the Penmen clinched the match.
At third singles, #16 Bibiloni dropped the first set to the score of 7-5 before tying the match with a 6-2 second set victory. But Bibiloni would eventually drop the third set in another closely contested match on the day to the final score of 7-5.
UP NEXT: Head Coach
Somadi Druker and the Knights return to action on Wednesday (Feb. 16) afternoon in a cross-divisional matchup against local Division I opponent St. John's University Red Storms. First serve is set for noon.
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