MEDFORD, Mass. – The #32-ranked Brandeis University men's tennis team nearly picked up a second top-20 upset of the season, but #17 Tufts University rallied to defeat the Judges, 5-4, on the Jumbos' home court yesterday.
Brandeis got off to a fast start, winning two of three doubles matches. Juniors Michael Arguello (Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood) and Jeffrey Cherkin (Melville, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills East) opened the scoring with an 8-2 win at No. 1, while senior Danny Lubarsky (Cleveland, Ohio/Hawken School) and rookie Jackson Kogan (Pacific Palisades, Calif. / Windward School) gave Brandeis the lead headed into singles with an 8-5 win at No. 2. Junior Brian Granoff (Miami, Fla./Gulliver Prep) and sophomore Eric Goldberg (Solon, Ohio/Solon) suffered an 8-3 loss at No. 3 to the tandem of Zain Ali and Rob Jacobsen.
In singles action, Brandeis won at the top two spots. Junior Ryan Bunis (Cincinnati, Ohio/Groton-Dunstable, Mass.) earned the Judges' third point with a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 1, the first singles match to be completed. The Jumbos tied the match at 3-3 with wins at No. 4, where rookie Tyler Ng (Great Neck., N.Y./Great Neck) rallied from a tough first set to push Jacobsen before falling, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4). Ali knocked off Arguello in three sets at No. 3, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, to knot the match.
Brandeis's Granoff got the match back on the right track for the Judges at No. 2 singles with a 7-5, 7-5 win over Jay Glickman. The Jumbos knotted the score at 4-4 as Dan Coren edged Kogan by the same 7-5, 7-5 score at No. 6. The match was decided at No. 5, where seniors Lubarsky of Brandeis and Nick Cary of Tufts faced off. Cary won the first set, 7-5, but Lubarsky answered with a 7-5 win of his own in the second set. The two were on serve through the first six games of the third set, but Cary earned a break at 4-3 and won the next two games as well to clinch the match.
Brandeis, which suffered its first loss in its last seven Division 3 matches, fell to 8-5 on the season. The Judges meet No. 2-ranked Bowdoin College at home on Friday at 3 p.m. Tufts improves to 9-4 and will meet Babson College Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on the road before taking on Trinity College later that afternoon.