The Fordham men’s tennis team began their 2024 spring campaign with a 6-1 loss to Boston University on Saturday.
The day started off well for the Rams, winning two of the three doubles matches to secure the doubles point, their lone one of the day.
The team of Giorgio Soemarno and Nick Mueller defeated Boston’s Jonah Dickson and Cole Knutson by a score of 6-4. That was followed by Nicholas Kanazirev and Dhillon Virdee-Oakley beating BU’s Corey Craig and Jacob Esterowitz 6-2. In the final doubles match, Fordham’s John Mascone and Bingru Chen lost to the Terrier team of Johan Sajonz and Alejandro Licea 1-6.
From then on, Boston swept the Rams in the singles matches, with Fordham losing all six points. Although Fordham didn’t win a single match, they were competitive in the majority of them.
The first match saw Mueller fall to Craig in two straight sets. The first set was knotted up at five games apiece before Craig took the final two games. Craig handled the second set more easily, winning 6-3 to take the match.
In the second singles match, Kanazirev lost to Esterowitz in straight sets, 1-6 and then 2-6.
Fordham took its first game in the third singles match. After Virdee-Oakley lost the first game to Licea by a score of 3-6, he came back to tie the match at 1-1 set a piece, winning 6-4. In the tie-breaking third set, Virdee-Oakley lost in heartbreaking fashion 5-7.
In the fourth match, Fordham once again lost in consecutive sets but were again competitive, not making it easy for Boston. Mascone forced a tie-breaking game after tying Boston’s Letzer 6-6 through the first 12 games. Mascone fell in the tie-breaking game to lose the first set 6-7. In the second set, Mascone lost 2-6 to send Fordham to 0-4 in singles matches on the day.
Fordham’s Chen faced off against Boston’s Dickson in another competitive battle in the fifth match. Chen lost 4-6 in the first set before tying the match up one set a piece with a 6-4 win. The last set was a back-and-forth affair with a total of 18 games played, with Chen eventually losing by a score of 8-10.
In the last match of the day, Boston finished off the singles sweep of Fordham when Stefan Stojanovic lost to Gustav Loutas in consecutive sets, 1-6 and 0-6.
Fordham will look for its first win of the season on Saturday, Feb. 10, at St. Bonaventure University.
