The University of Rochester men's tennis team picked up a thrilling 5-4 victory over conference rival NYU on Saturday, with sophomore Kei Ogawa winning the match-clinching point at sixth singles.
 
Ogawa's win broke the 4-all overall match score and pushed Rochester's record to 5-4 on the season. NYU sits at 0-3 after the loss.
 
The 5-4 win in the series is the fourth straight meeting between the schools that has ended with that score. Rochester won 5-4 at the UAA Championships in 2018 and NYU took a pair of 5-4 decisions in 2019.
 
The sixth singles match, specifically the second set was a thrilling back-and-forth affair. Ogawa took the opening set 6-3 against NYU's Henry Hochfelder. In the second, Hochfelder jumped out to a 3-0 lead, only to see Ogawa rattle off five games in a row to go up 5-3. Hochfelder responded with a three-game spurt to surge ahead 6-5.
 
Ogawa remained stoic though, stopping the Hochfelder run and forcing a tiebreak. Hochfelder took the first point of the tiebreak, but a couple of errors allowed Rochester's Ogawa to go ahead 4-1 and eventually take the 7-4 tiebreak win to clinch the match.
 
After doubles, Rochester held a 2-1 lead, getting wins from the first doubles pair of Runjia Fang and Kai Yuminaga and the third doubles pair of Adrian Zhang and Kenneth Lee. Fang and Yuminaga were 8-2 winners, while Zhang and Lee won in a tight 8-7 (7-3) affair.
 
NYU's second doubles team of Joseph He and Rumaish Khastgir earned an 8-7 (7-5) win of their own for the Violets point in doubles.
 
To open singles, UR's Krish Vennam posted a 6-4, 6-0 win over Khastgir at #3 to boost UR's lead to 3-1.
 
NYU followed with three straight wins at positions two, four and one to grab a 4-3 lead heading into the final two matches. He defeated Fang 7-6, 6-0, Andy Watterson won 6-3, 6-3 over Yuminaga and Alex Yang topped Paquale Procaccino 0-6, 6-3, 6-1 for the NYU singles wins.
 
Now trailing in the team match, Zhang picked up a clutch win at fifth singles over Max O'Malley, winning 6-1, 6-2 to force the winner-take-all match at the sixth spot.
 
Prior to the match, UR's three seniors, Zhang, Procaccino and Fang were honored with a ceremony celebrating their four seasons with the Yellowjacket tennis program.
 
Rochester returns to action next Saturday at RIT.