DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The NCAA D II No. 10 Concordia (N.Y.) men's tennis team registered its second straight 5-4 win against NAIA third-ranked Embry-Riddle, Tuesday at the Crotty Tennis Complex. The win moved the Clippers, who topped the Eagles by the same margin a year ago, to 3-0 on the year, while the Eagles drop to 4-2 overall.
The first doubles match off the court was at the third spot where
Adrian Bayh and
Simon Felix rallied from a 4-1 deficit to top Andreas Lindell and David Tesserand. Andrey Boldarev and Daniele Piludu pulled the Clippers level with an 8-4 win over
Jan Hoekzema and
Patrick Besch at the top flight.
At No. 2 doubles,
Peter Francis and
Chris Freeman went up 6-5 but then fell behind the Concordia duo of Tamas Dobrotka and Gaza Bazula, 7-6. Freeman held serve to pull the Eagles level at 7-7 and then Freeman and Francis broke to go up 8-7. With the Eagles serving for the match, Dobrotka and Bazula broke back to force a tie. The Eagle tandem was unable to sustain an early lead and fell 7-5 in the tie-breaker to give the Clippers a 2-1 edge heading into singles play.
The Clippers extended their lead to 4-1 after Felix Missal downed
David Spennare 6-3, 6-0 at No. 6 singles and 14th-ranked Boldarev held off Freeman 7-5, 6-1 at the top spot. The Eagles narrowed the gap to 4-2 when Felix battled back from being down 4-1 in the first to win his match against Lindell, 6-4, 6-4 at the fifth flight.
Besch also fell behind early in his first set at the second spot when Piludu raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first set. Besch fought his way back into contention and forced a tie-breaker, which he won 8-6. Riding the momentum of his first set comeback, Besch took the second 6-4 to make the team score 4-3.
At No. 4 singles, Francis took the first set 6-4, but dropped the second to Dobrotka 6-1. Both players battled hard in the third set that needed a tie-breaker to decide the outcome. In the end, it was Francis who overwhelmed Dobrotka 7-1 in the tie-breaker to knot the team score at 4-4.
The deciding point came down to the match at the third singles spot between Hoekzema and Tisserand. Hoekzema held off Tisserand in the first set 7-6, but the Concordia freshman fought back to take the second set 6-4. The third set also required a tie-breaker and in the end, after a four-hour battle, it was Tisserand who edged seventh-ranked Hoekzema 8-6 to clinch the Clipper win.
The Eagles will be back in action at 3:30 p.m. on Friday when they host conference opponent St. Thomas at the Crotty Tennis Complex.
