Feb. 25, 2012
Box Score
Hartford, Conn. -
The Fordham University men's tennis squad started its weekend of tennis in New England with a 7-0 shutout of the University of Hartford on Saturday, led by Kuba Kowalski who won in straight sets at first singles.
The Rams opened play by taking the doubles point, winning all three doubles matches by identical 8-1 scores. Kowalski and Mischa Koran won at first doubles over Aneil Bhalla and Marco Neves, Srikar Alla and Peder Gram took second doubles from Michael Kennelly and Josh Isaacson and Max Peara and Michael Puntillo were victorious at the third position over Bogdan Nedelcu and Alex Holdstein.
Fordham then won all six singles matches, five of them in straight sets. Kowalski took first singles from Marco Neves, 6-3, 6-3, while Alla won at the second position over Bhalla, 6-4, 6-3, and Koran was victorious over Isaacson at third singles, 6-2, 6-1. Fourth singles was the only match to go to a tiebreaker as Peara took the first set from Kennelly, 6-3, but dropped the second, 6-4. He then won the match by taking the tiebreaker, 10-8
Gram won at fifth singles over Holdstein, 6-1, 6-3, and Puntillo took the sixth spot from Nedelcu, 6-2, 6-1, to complete the sweep for Fordham.
The Rams wrap up their weekend in New England with a match at Boston University on Sunday at 1:00 PM.
"I am pleased with the way we came out and took care of business," said Fordham head coach Cory Hubbard. "We stayed focused and didn't give them a chance to hang around and really established the momentum throughout the match. It was important to get off the court quickly, so we can be rested and ready to go tomorrow. BU will be a very challenging match and we have to play with hunger and heart. This is our first back to back days of dual matches, so we will need to dig deep and really compete hard tomorrow because BU has a very deep team."
