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| Rohan Gupte was part of a #1 doubles win that gave Tufts a 2-1 lead |
MEDFORD - The Tufts men's tennis team put up a good battle, but ultimately fell 7-2 to Middlebury College in a NESCAC match Sunday at Voute Courts.
The Jumbos are ranked 17th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association national poll and Middlebury is at #3. Tufts won two of three doubles matches, but Middlebury swept singles to post the victory. Two of the three doubles matches went extra and three of the six singles contests extended to three sets in a match that was more competitive than the final score indicates.
Jumbos Nik Telkedzhiev and Griffin Brockman gave the hosts a 1-0 lead by winning #2 doubles 9-7. Middlebury tied the score at 1-1 as William de Quant and Kyle Schlanger scored an 8-5 win in third doubles. The #1 pairs of Nick Cary with Rohan Gupte for Tufts and Ari Smolyar with Noah Farrell for Middlebury waged an epic 9-8 (10) match won by the Jumbos.
Down 2-1 entering singles, Middlebury tied the match with a default victory by Palmer Campbell at #3. The Panthers then took a 3-2 lead with a straight-set win (6-2, 6-3) by Hamid Derbani in fifth singles. Farrell, the #1 ranked singles player in the country, and winner of the Division III singles national title at the USTA/ITA Small College Championships in the fall, beat Gupte in straight sets at first singles to give the Panthers a 4-2 advantage.
The deciding win came at #4 where de Quant won a third set against Zain Ali 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Panthers would also prevail in three sets at #6 and #2 with victories by Timo van der Geest (2-6, 6-4, 7-5) and #24-ranked Smolyar. The second singles match between Smolyar and Jumbo Jay Glickman included another epic battle in the first set as Glickman won 7-6 (14). Smolyar turned it on for 6-1, 6-0 wins after that to take the match.
Middlebury improved to 9-2 overall and 5-2 in NESCAC with the win. They host Bowdoin next Sunday at 11:30 am. Tufts (8-4, 3-2 NESCAC), which lost back-to-back matches for the first time this season, host Brandeis on Wednesday at 4 pm.
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