The Brown men\u2019s tennis team (13-6, 0-0 Ivy) had a roller-coaster of a day during a home doubleheader this past Sunday, first losing 4-3 a nail-biter game against St. John\u2019s (13-2, 3-0 Big East) before facing Sacred Heart (1-10, 0-2 MAAC).<\/p>\n
Despite falling inches short from victory against the Red Storm, Bruno\u2019s flawless 7-0 performance against Sacred Heart later in the afternoon moved the Bears to No. 5 in the Ivy League as they move into conference play later this month. Sunday\u2019s matchups followed a 4-0 victory over Temple at home on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d feel a little bit better had it been a 3-0 weekend as opposed to a 2-1 weekend,\u201d Head Coach Mike Fried \u201991 told The Herald. \u201cAt the same time, I think that everybody feels the work (is) paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Bruno\u2019s contest against St. John\u2019s, the doubles matches would prove to be the swing factor, as the teams evenly split the singles matches. Brown lost several matches by small margins over the course of the fierce matchup, with each point carrying the potential difference between victory or defeat.<\/p>\n
Though Noah Hernandez \u201926 and Zander Bravo \u201926 opened Bruno\u2019s doubles play with a narrow loss, the seniors showed they were far from outmatched. In a thrilling deciding point at 40-40 during the third game, the Bears sent their opponents running up and down the court before sealing the game with a forehand smash.<\/p>\n
Later on, during one of the Red Storm\u2019s services in the ninth game, Hernandez accurately tracked his opponent\u2019s second serve and leapt up for a forehand to win the point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bruno gave up a service break soon after, which cost the match for the two seniors by a final score of 6-4.<\/p>\n
Bravo acknowledged he and Hernandez let several crucial volleys and services slip away. But, he told the Herald, \u201cthis by no means was a bad match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ivan Sodan \u201927 and Lukas Phimvongsa \u201928 tasted Bruno\u2019s lone doubles victory with a crushing 6-1 victory, while the duo of Cole Oberg \u201929 and Elliot Wasserman \u201929 lost 6-2. St. John\u2019s was awarded the double point as the singles matches commenced with both teams desperately vying for the overall victory.<\/p>\n
Singles play similarly came down to the wire in both the individual and team scores. Sodan\u00a0 pushed St. John\u2019s Radomir Tomic to three sets in the first singles match before losing by a single game in the final set.<\/p>\n
In a thrilling tiebreaker match point, the two sent each other flying across the entire court in an attempt to gain an edge. With nearly every set of eyes in the vicinity glued to the contest, Tomic rushed toward the net and countered Sodan\u2019s drop shot with a strong cross-court forehand to win the match.<\/p>\n
Refusing to let St. John\u2019s pick up further momentum, Robert Yang \u201929 and Wasserman showed off their potential with clean straight-set wins in their singles matches.<\/p>\n
Yang demonstrated patience and consistency in his dominant performance against St. John\u2019s Armando Sotelo, outlasting his opponent in long rallies with accurate placement and swift footwork. The first-year maintained a comfortable winning margin throughout the match, only dropping three total games to win 6-2 and 6-1.<\/p>\n
Facing a St. John\u2019s set point in the first set, Wasserman did not falter despite the jitter-inducing scoreboard. Wasserman brought his powerful forehand across the court to snatch the set out of the Red Storm\u2019s hands and win the tiebreak game \u2013\u2013\u00a0a crucial moment in his match\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
Phimvongsa added in his own singles victory, and with the overall team scores now drawn at 3-3, Bravo took the court for his singles match against St. John\u2019s Venedikt Tsirikidze to decide the fate of the afternoon.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for Bruno, it was Tsirikidze who eked out the victory to award his team the overall contest win. Though Bravo got tantalizingly close to winning the first set of the match, he dropped a 7-6 tiebreaker before falling in the next set 6-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave absolutely everything I had; I played very well,\u201d Bravo said about his performance. \u201cMy opponent was a very good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few short hours after laying it all on the court against St. John\u2019s, the Bears showcased their ability to bounce back and shut out an overwhelmed Sacred Heart \u2013\u2013\u00a0not losing a single match for a 7-0 sweep.<\/p>\n
\n Get The Herald delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n
Brown relied on their experience in doubleheaders and did not let fatigue affect the score against Sacred Heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exhausting, but there\u2019s no place we\u2019d rather be, of course, than on the court,\u201d Bravo said, reflecting on a season peppered with back-to-back matchups.<\/p>\n
The Bears will be back in action against Bryant (3-13, 0-0 Big South) at home on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trained our lives for this, and this is what we work for,\u201d Bravo said. \u201cSo the more matches, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chiupong Huang<\/p>\n
Chiupong Huang is a senior staff writer covering sports. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brown men\u2019s tennis team (13-6, 0-0 Ivy) had a roller-coaster of a day during a home doubleheader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-547893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}