Jan. 19, 2013
Box Score
New York, N.Y. -
Even though the vernal equinox is over a month away, the Fordham University men's tennis team got its spring season started today, falling to BYU, 6-1, at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center at Columbia University.
The Rams opened the season without three of their top players, Kuba Kowalski, who enters the spring ranked #110 in the ITA national ranking and #12 in the ITA Northeast Regional rankings, Mischa Koran, and Emilio Mora (who were out due to illness/injury), and made thing more difficult by opening with the 58th-ranked BYU squad.
The Rams opened the match by dropping the doubles point, losing all three doubles matches. BYU's Spencer Smith and Travis Fillmore defeated Srikar Alla and Max Peara and first doubles, 8-3, while Patrick Kawka and Francis Sargeant took second doubles from Alex DeRienzo and Jan Krouham, 8-1. At third doubles, Keaton Cullimore and John Pearce upended Fordham's Peder Gram and J.J. Tauil, 8-4.
Alla, who enters the season ranked #12 in the ITA Northeast Regional, managed to pick up a point for Fordham at first singles, defeating Smith in a marathon session with all both sets going to a tiebreaker before the two played a super tiebreaker for the match. Smith took the first set, 7-6 (winning the tiebreaker 7-5), while Alla came back to take the second by the same score, winning the tiebreaker, 7-5. Alla then won the set with a 10-6 win in the super tiebreaker.
The Rams dropped the other five singles matches in straight sets with Gram falling to Kawka (6-0, 6-2) at second singles, Peara dropping third singles to Cullimore (6-2, 6-3), Tauil losing at the fourth position to Francis Sargeant (6-3, 6-2), Krouham losing at the fifth spot to Pearce (6-3, 6-1) and DeRienzo falling at sixth singles to Andrey Goryachkov (6-1, 6-3).
The Rams return to action on Friday, January 25, as they face Fairfield University in Stamford, Connecticut, at 8:00 p.m.
