It has been an eventful week for the men’s tennis team thus far as they came from a four-game losing streak to win the past two tournaments in down-to-the-wire 4-3 brawls.
The Waves upset No. 11 Illinois on Saturday making for their highest-opponent-ranked win of the season and made a close comeback to defeat Boise State on Tuesday afternoon.
“I was really happy for all of us that we finally got a win senior Bassam Beidas said, and we were able to experience the feeling of winning a close match because we have lost a lot of close matches already this year. We are all obviously really happy. They were tight wins against good teams. It has given us more motivation for the rest of the year because we feel like we can hopefully start rolling now.”
The victory came down to the final match of the day Saturday at No. 1 singles where No. 40 nationally ranked Beidas faced No. 64 Marek Czerwinski. The Fighting Illini opponent took the first set in 3-6 while Beidas took the second in 6-3 pushing the final victory into a drawn-out third-set tiebreaker. Beidas claimed the win in a 7-5 dual for the tournament victory.
“Our match had been going a long time so I just tried to remember what I had been doing for the last hour that had helped me come out on top in the second set Beidas said. I knew how I was winning a lot of the points and just tried to make sure every point looked that way. My teammates helped a lot in pulling me through that match as well.”
Freshmen Mousheg Hovhannisyan and Finn Tearney also claimed individual wins at No. 4 and No. 5 singles. For the first time since the season opener (Jan. 27) the Waves won all three matches to gain the doubles point.
It was another close call at the Ralph-Straus Tennis Center on Tuesday as Boise State took the doubles point and took two of the early singles matches to gain a 3-1 lead with just three singles matches to go. But Tearney Hovhannisyan and fellow freshman Sebastian Fanselow came through for the Waves winning each of their individual matches at No. 4 No. 2 and No. 5 respectively. Sophomore Alex Llompart also captured the first singles match at No. 3.
“Right now we are focusing on just winning all the way until our conference tournament Beidas said. If we can do that, we will have a lot of momentum going into the NCAA tournament.
The team hopes to continue their winning streak with a doubleheader on Thursday as they host rival Loyola Marymount at 10 a.m. and San Diego State at 3:30 p.m.
