March 28, 2013
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Bronx, N.Y. -
The Fordham University men's tennis team opened its home season today and made the most of its time on the Hawthorn/Rooney Courts, playing a marathon, four-hour match with St. Bonaventure University before upending the Bonnies, 4-3.
The Rams battled back the entire match, falling behind 1-0 after dropping the doubles point and then trailing 3-2 after the first four singles matches were complete. But Peder Gram won at sixth singles to tie the match and Jan Krouham went an extra set before winning at the fifth position to secure the win for Fordham.
"It's a great way to open the home season," said head coach Mickey Brzov. "Even though we were down for most of the match, we kept battling back and Peder and Jan played outstanding matches to bring home the win."
As they have done for the entire spring season, the Rams were without the services of two of their top players, Kuba Kowalski and Mischa Koran, due to injury which forced the rest of the lineup to play up in the singles flights.
After dropping the doubles point, Srikar Alla, playing at first singles due to the injuries to Kowalski and Koran, got the Rams on the scoreboard with a straight set win over Elliott Fanshel, 6-2 and 6-4. It was Alla's eighth win at first singles this year as he improves to 15-5 overall.
Shortly after Alla's match ended, the Bonnies took a 2-1 lead as Luis Guevara defeated J.J. Tauil, 6-3, 7-5, at third singles but Matty Najfeld got the Rams even with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Oscar Yanez at the second position.
St. Bonaventure again took a one-point lead, 3-2, when Javier Ortiz defeated
Max Peara at fourth singles. Peara won the first set, 6-4, but Ortiz came back to win the second, 6-2 and the third, 6-4.
So it all came down to Krouham and Gram, who both won their first sets but dropped their second. Krouham won the first set from Gabriel Cardenas at fifth singles, 6-2 but lost the second, 6-2, while Gram took the first set from Trevor Haskell at the sixth spot, 6-2, but dropped the second, 6-4. Gram came back to take a 5-2 lead in the third set and then held on for a 6-4 lead to tie the match at 3-3.
Krouham also led in the third set before Cardenas came back to tie the set at 5-5. Krouham dug in and took the final two games to win the set, 7-5, and the match, leading the Rams to the win.
The Rams opened the match dropping the doubles point, losing all three matches by 8-5 scores. Yanez and Guevara bested Alla and Tauil at first doubles, Ortiz and Fanshel defeated Najfeld and Peara at second doubles and Haskell and Cardenas upended Gram and Michael Puntillo at the third position.
The Rams return to action on Tuesday, April 2, as they travel to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to face Marist College at 3:00 PM.
