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Alexei Prokopchuk hitting a backhand
George Rodriguez
2
Biola BIOLA (6-4)
5
Winner UC San Diego UCSD (8-2)
Biola BIOLA
(6-4)
2
Final
5
UC San Diego UCSD
(8-2)
Winner

Match Recap: Men's Tennis | | Brandon Taylor, Assistant Sports Information Director

Tritons Stymie Upset Attempt

UC San Diego holds off Biola Men’s Tennis with wins on the swing courts in single play.


LA JOLLA, Calif. --- For a while there the Eagles had a path to victory lined up. Head Coach David Goodman's men's tennis team had won the doubles point with wins at lines one and three and had routine first set win in number one singles from Alexei Prokopchuk. 

Derek James and Edwyn Ramos were also even late in their first sets, sitting at 6-6 and 5-5, respectively, against their opponents. But a late break on four and a tiebreaker on three that went in the Tritons' favor swung momentum in UC San Diego's direction and led to a 5-2 win for the home team.

As the early going showed, Biola's match with the No. 7 team in NCAA DII was a lot closer than the final score might indicate. The tandems of Prokopchuk and Edwyn Ramos and Quentin Lau and Derek James both won their doubles matches with multiple breaks in hand to get Biola off to a strong start.

But UCSD rebounded in singles with a reshuffled singles lineup that attempted to counter Biola's success in the team's first meeting on February 8. It seems the Tritons made the decision that they were willing to concede the No. 1 singles match to Prokopchuk and Biola in order to move their customary No. 1 and 2 singles players down a flight in their lineup. 

After playing seven matches at UCSD's No. 1 and losing to Prokopchuk 6-0, 6-3 in February, Sahm Irvine moved to No. 2 to face Logan Blair and earned a straight-sets victory. And after Blair had previously beat Marc Isaia in three sets, Isaia moved to three and narrowly clipped James in straights after that aforementioned first set tiebreaker. 

Some credit is definitely due to the Triton's Phillip Lan for pushing Prokopchuk to a superbreaker with a tiebreaker win in the second set. But the Ukrainian took care of business with a 10-7 score in the superbreaker to win to improve to 9-1 on the season at the No. 1 singles rank. 

Prokopchuk's six-straight wins at No. 1 is also the longest winning streak any Biola Men's Tennis player has recorded since the program was restarted in 2007. 

The Eagles will get the rest of the week off from competition. But they'll return to the Biola Tennis Center on Monday to host St. Katherine at 4 p.m. 

 
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