ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL – A valiant come from behind effort by the University of Rochester men's tennis team fell just short against New York University in the 7th place match of the UAA Championship Tournament on Sunday morning at Sanlando Park.
The Violets (7-8) got a win from Joshua Piatos in the final match on court to earn a 5-4 victory, capping off play at the conference tournament with only fully completed match of men's competition. Rochester ends the season 12-8. The match was a battle between the #36 (NYU) and #37 (Rochester) teams in the latest ITA Division III team rankings.
Piatos and
Sahaj Somani dueled at #6 singles, in a rematch from last season's 7th place match at UAA's, where Somani won in three sets, lifting Rochester to a 5-4 victory in that match. Somani ended up taking the opening set 7-6 before Piatos responded with a 6-2 win in set two.
In the third, the two went back and forth, reaching 6-all, needing another tiebreak to settle the winner. Piatos' took the tiebreaker 7-5 with an overrule call on the final point sending the Yellowjackets away with a heartbreaking defeat.
Somani was edged out in the deciding match.
Setting up the dramatic final match, Rochester needed to win two straight singles points to rally from 4-2 down.
Mark Zolotukhin earned a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 win over Rahul Das at #5 to even the match at 4-all, while
Yifan Shen outlasted Stefan Rodic at #2, rallying for a 5-6, 6-4, 6-1 win.
After doubles, NYU held a 2-1 lead. Rochester's point was earned by the #3 team of
Runjia Fang and
Tanmay Thakkar. They defeated Vishal Walia and Shrikar Kundur 8-3.
At #1, Das and Zeb Zheng of NYU defeated Shen and
Masaru Fujimaki 8-6. The Violets #2 team of Benedict Teoh and Lucas Biondi won 8-4 over Rochester's Somani and
Pasquale Procaccino.
Rochester was dealt a tough blow to open singles, as Fang had to retire in his #3 singles match against Biondi after just three games, giving NYU another point, putting the score at 3-1.
Fujimaki responded for UR with another strong effort, his third straight tremendous outing on the weekend, winning 6-4, 6-3 over Walia at #1 singles, trimming the advantage back to one.
NYU surged back ahead with a 6-7, 7-6 win by Yanik Parsch over Thakkar at #4 singles, pushing the score to 4-2, setting up the match for the dramatic finish with the three 3-set affairs.
