Fordham Men’s Tennis enjoyed a successful spring break. The team first traveled to Orlando, Fla., to compete at the USTA National Campus over the break before returning home to New York, dominating the competition in both states with three wins.
The Rams began their trip in convincing fashion with a shutout win over Union College.
Fordham started by sweeping all three doubles matches to take the doubles point. In the first doubles, the duo of senior Giorgio Soemarno and graduate student Nick Mueller overmatched Unions’ Ben Jacobs and Dimitris Binopoulos 8-0. The win was followed by a more competitive battle from sophomore Dhillon Virdee-Oakley and senior Nicholas Kanazirev, beating out the Chargers’ Austin Gregory and Keita Fukushima 8-5. The Rams completed the doubles sweep when senior Bingru Cheng and sophomore Stefan Stojanovic defeated Seth Prusko and Daniel Saxe 8-3.
In singles, the Rams began the duels with three more sweeps. Mueller started on the right foot, winning in straight sets, first 6-2, before closing out with a tie-breaking 7-6 victory over Jacobs. Soemarno continued the dominance, winning in straight sets with a score of 6-3 and another tie-breaking 7-6 win, outlasting Binopoulos. Kanazirev concluded the stretch of sweeps with a 6-4 and 7-5 defeat of Fukushima.
In the fourth match, Virdee-Oakley had competition but still completed the job. He won the first set over Saxe by a score of 6-4 before falling in the second 1-6. In the rubber match, Virdee-Oakley claimed victory with a 6-3 win. This match was followed by two more two-set sweeps from Chen and Stojanovic over Prusko and Ton. Chen won 6-2 and 6-1, the most dominant performance for the Rams, while Stojanovic finished off the sweep with 6-3 and 6-2 wins.
Fordham concluded their Florida trip facing off against DePauw University on a warm, windy day.
The Rams again started the day taking the doubles point, this time winning two out of three matches. Soemarno and Mueller got Fordham going by defeating DePauw’s Ryan McCook and Chase Hutchinson 8-3. Kanazirev and Virdee-Oakley kept the momentum going and secured the point with an 8-6 victory over Wils Warren and Teagen Crow. Mascone and Stojanovic lost a hard-fought battle to Sela and Anderson 6-8 in the final doubles match.
Mueller and Samuele Pia squared off for the first singles match, with Mueller losing the first set, 4-6, but prevailed in the final two sets, 6-3 and 6-2, to win the first singles point. Depauw got on the board in second singles when Finley Buelte swept Nicholas Kanazirev 6-4 and 6-1 to cut the Rams lead in half. Fordham bounced back in the third match when Virdee-Oakley beat McCook in consecutive sets both by a score of 6-2.
Now, with a 3-1 lead, Mascone clinched the win with two 6-3 wins against Jake Louiselle. With Fordham’s victory inevitable, they split the final two matches to win 5-2 and go home to the Bronx with two wins in Florida.
On a three-game win streak dating back to the previous week, the Rams looked to make it four-in-a-row facing Manhattanville College back at home on the Hawthorn-Rooney Courts.
As with the previous competitions, Fordham once again began the day with a doubles point win. This time, the duo of Soemarno and Virdee-Oakley defeated Weston Goodwin and James Hourihan 8-2. Mueller and Kanazirev followed up the win by clinching the doubles point with an 8-3 victory of their own versus Derwin Guzman and Shiel Loganadan. Mascone and freshman Christian Ramos completed the sweep in the final match, winning easily 8-1 over Griffin Forberg and Christian Hunter-Crump.
In the singles matches, the Rams overmatched the Valiants en route to another sweep. Mueller started the scoring with a sweep of his own, beating Hourihan 6-0 in both sets. Soemarno continued the winning ways against Goodwin in another two-set sweep, the first 6-1 before finishing with a 6-0 battle. Virdee-Oakley followed up with a straight-set victory of his own over Loganadan, both by the score of 6-1 to secure the Fordham win. Moscone, Stojanovic and Ramos all ended the day with wins of their own to complete the sweep.
The Rams were scheduled to play Sacred Heart University the following day, but poor weather postponed the match.
Overall, it was an incredible stretch for Fordham to push their win streak to a total of four and their record to 5-7. They look to continue their success at home on April 10 against Queens College before traveling to Richmond, Va., for two weekend matches against George Mason University and the University of Richmond.
