POUGHKEEPSIE, NY – The University of Rochester men's tennis team picked up its second straight nail-biting win to open the spring semester, defeating Vassar College 5-4 on Saturday afternoon at Vassar's Walker Field House.
 
Junior Tanmay Thakkar earned the clinching point, rallying for a three-set win over Jamie Anderson at 3rd singles, winning 6-7 (5), 7-5 and 6-4.
 
The 5-4 win was the second straight for UR (3-0), after the Yellowjackets edged #26 ranked Rensselaer on Friday afternoon.  Vassar drops to 2-1 on the season with the loss.
 
For the second straight day, doubles were UR's strong point, as the Yellowjackets took all three points to jump out to the early 3-0 lead.  Masaru Fujimaki and Runjia Fang won the opening point of the match at #1 with an 8-3 victory over Allen Sokolov and Jeremy Auh.
 
Sahaj Somani and Pasquale Procaccino then won 8-4 over Nick Zuczek and Nick Demaria at #2 with Thakkar pairing with Yifan Shen for an 8-6 win over Anderson and Adam Krueger at #3.
 
The 3-0 Rochester lead got trimmed to 3-2 with the Brewers taking the opening two points in singles.  Sokolov won in straight sets over Procaccino at #5 (6-2, 6-1), and Krueger won over Somani at #4 with back-to-back 6-3 wins.
 
Fujimaki then earned his fourth win of the weekend, becoming a double-winner for the second straight match, beating David Gandham at #1 with a 6-2, 6-3 win, to put UR one point away from the match.
 
Vassar continued to rally though, taking the next two points at #2 from Mat Yee over Shen (6-1, 2-6, 6-4) and at #6 with Auh defeating Mark Zolotukhin 6-1, 7-6 (4), evening the overall match at 4-all.
 
In the deciding match, Thakkar was trailing 3-4 in the final set before rattling off three straight games, posting the 6-4 win in the third, sealing the match for the Yellowjackets.
 
Rochester is off for two weeks and will next play in another road match at Ithaca College on Sunday, February 24th.