WAYLAND, Mass. – The Brandeis men's tennis team was upended, 6-3, on Friday evening in a match against University Athletic Association rivals NYU. The 32nd-ranked Judges fall to 4-3 on the season, while the Violets improve to 2-1. The match was played at the Longfellow Racquet Club in Wayland.
The Judges fell behind, 2-1, after doubles play. NYU won the first two matches on the two lower runs of the ladder, 8-3 at No. 2 and 8-5 at No. 3. Seniors Michael Arguello (Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood) and Brian Granoff (Miami, Fla./Gulliver Prep) held off Umberto Setter and Zeb Zheng of NU in a tiebreaker at No. 1, 9-8 (8-6), to get Brandeis on the board.
NYU took an early singles lead at No. 6, starting the actiomatn at bottom of the ladder while doubles matches were being played to take advantage of the available courts. Yanick Parche edged Brandeis rookie Benjamin Wolfe (Blue Bell, Pa./Wissahickon), 6-4, 6-3, to put the visitors up 3-1.
Granoff picked up his second win of the day at No. 2 singles, 6-0, 6-3, to bring Brandeis within 3-2, but Setter knocked off Arguello at the top spot, 6-2, 6-1, to regain the two-point cushion. Judge sophomore Tyler Ng (Great Neck, N.Y. / Great Neck South) added another point for the Judges at No. 3, 6-1, 6-3, moving the action to spots 4 and 5 in the lineup.
At No. 5, Brandeis's Jackson Kogan (Pacific Palisades, Calif. / Windward School) looked to give the Judges the advantage by winning his first set from NYU's Vishal Walia, 6-2. At No. 4, the Violets' Michael Li and Brandeis rookie Mitchell Ostrovsky (Brooklyn, N.Y. / Leon M Goldstein) went to a tiebreaker in the first set, with the visitor taking the key game, 7-5. Li went on to win the second set, 6-4, to clinch the match for NYU, while Walia came back to win the final two sets against Kogan, 6-4, 6-3, and secure the upset.
Brandeis and NYU could meet again in Florida at the UAA Championships in April. The Judges return to action with a series of matches against top-15 opponents, starting next Saturday at No. 3 Middlebury, with No. 15 Amherst and No. 2 and defending national champions Bowdoin the following two weekends.