MTEN: ‘Nova falls to Owls, but aces UConn

John Whalon

The men’s tennis team continues to struggle this season and conceded its sixth loss of the season as it traveled to play its Philadelphia rival, the Temple Owls. The Owls improved their record to over .500 as the Wildcats lost their sixth of seven matches this season.

After capturing their first win of the season, the ‘Cats failed to get a winning streak going and the Owls edged out the Wildcats by a score of 4-2. The two points came from juniors Scott Fahrendorf and Dimitri Chimerakis at the third and fourth singles spots respectively. Fahrendorf and Chimerakis won in straight sets; Fahrendorf defeated Zach Tobias 6-2, 6-3, and Chimerakis defeated Pavlos Stephanides 6-4, 6-3. With his win, Fahrendorf broke the .500 mark and improved his record to 3-2, and Chimerakis’ was his second win of the season.

Freshman Brett Tobin and sophomore Sumanth Chittajallu, at the fifth and sixth singles spots respectively, won their first sets; however, they were unable to hold on and dropped their second and third sets. Tobin took the first set 6-3, but he lost the second and third sets 1-6. Chittajallu won his first set 6-4 and then lost the next two 2-6, 3-6, respectively. Sophomore Brian Maher, at the second singles spot, took his match into three sets as well, but again failed to close the match out, losing 2-6, 6-4, 1-6.

Tobin has a promising future on the team, having won half of his singles matches in his first season at the collegiate level. Maher and Daly also hope to bounce back from their disappointing starts.

After the disappointing loss to the Owls, the team started off conference play strong on the road against the UConn Huskies, recording ‘Nova’s second win of the season.

The ‘Cats claimed victory over the Huskies with a score of 4-1 after darkness halted a couple of matches. The Wildcats started off the day winning the doubles point and continued the good play as Daly and Maher took the No. 1 and No. 2 spots respectively. Both were able to win in straight sets, and after dropping his first set 3-6, Chimerakis won the final two sets 6-3, 6-3.

Fahrendorf’s and Tobin’s matches were both suspended due to darkness, but it didn’t matter after Villanova clinched a victory when it grabbed the fourth point.

The men’s tennis team looked to stay undefeated in the Big East conference as it hosted the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Wednesday. Rutgers was coming off a 9-0 loss to Division II Barry University.