BRONX, N.Y. – Playing their second match in three days, the Queens College men's tennis team traveled to the Bronx for a non-conference match against the Violets of New York University at Stadium Tennis Center Sunday afternoon.
It would be another back-and-forth match for the Knights as Queens fell behind 2-1 after the conclusion of double play before the Knights rallied in singles play by winning four straight singles matches with two matches going the distance as Queens earned a 5-4 victory over the Violets.
With the win, the Knights improved their overall record to 1-1 on the young season.
Doubles
Queens opened the doubles play with the #1 court of senior pair
Roni Rikkonen (Tampere, Finland) and
Omar El Shehawey (Cairo, Egypt) earning an 8-3 victory over Boren Zheng and Alex Lee.
But the Violets would take a 2-1 lead into singles as the duo of sophomore
Lucas Foix Sotos (Javea, Spain) and rookie
Tim Andersson (Linkoping, Sweden) fell 8-5 to Louis Frowein and Jingyuan Chen at #2 court.
The #3 pair of rookie
David Cerne (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and senior
Francisco Gonzalez (La Plata, Argentina) fell in a tough tiebreaker to the score of 8-7
(9-7) against Zachary Freier and Cooper Smith.
Singles
The Violets would take a 3-1 lead as Cerne fell to Ryan Shayani to the score of 0-6, 3-6 at #6 singles.
The deficit would grow to 4-1 as Rikkonen fell at #1 singles to Zheng to the score of 3-6, 3-6.
Looking to mount a comeback, Shehawey would earn the Knights' first singles victory of the afternoon as he defeated Rumaish Khastgir to the score of 6-1, 7-5 at #4 court.
Rookie
Noah Gauthier (La Colle-sur-Loup, France) would bring the scoreline down to 4-3 as the French native earned a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Freier at #5 court.
Queens would tie the match at 4-4 as junior
Cameron Henricy (Las Palmas, Spain) earned a thrilling three-set victory over Chen. Henricy would drop the first set to the score 5-7 before he forced a third set with a 6-3 second set victory and completed the comeback with a 6-4 victory at #2 court.
Down to the last match at #3 court Andersson would go back and forth against Frowein. The Rookie took the first set in a tiebreaker to the score of 7-6
(7-3) before Frowein earned a 7-5 victory to force the deciding third set.
It would be a thrilling match that lasted close to three hours before Andersson earned a 7-6
(7-5) third-set victory giving Queens their first victory of the year.
Next Serve
The Knights return to action on Friday (Mar. 8) evening as they welcome the Warriors of Merrimack College to town to open a two-match homestand. Queens leads the All-Time series 3-2 and earned a 5-2 victory at home last year on March 18. The first serve is set for 7:00 p.m.
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