The No. 19 Lords tennis team has won five of their last six matches, after coming up with victories against No. 21 Swarthmore College, Haverford College, Denison University, Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Wooster with its one loss coming against No. 7 Amherst College.
The Lords started their Pennsylvania doubleheader at Haverford on Saturday, defeating the Fords in all nine matches, with only the third singles match of Nicholas Paolucci ’19 against Pranav Krishnan requiring a tiebreaker. The win was the Lords’ fourth shutout this season.
The Lords then traveled 10 miles south to Swarthmore to take on the 21st ranked team in a heavyweight matchup. After doubles play, the Lords found themselves down 2-1, after collecting a 8-5 victory with the second doubles team of Jacob Zalenski ’20 and Austin Diehl ’20. The Garnet extended their lead to 3-1 after the first single smatch ended, but the Lords quickly turned the tide with Paolucci and Bryan Yoshino ’21 making quick work of their third and fifth singles match opponents, respectively. The Lords were able to finally pull ahead 4-3 with the third singles victory by Diehl, but the Garnet were able to tie it up 4-4 with a victory in fourth singles.
The deciding match for the Lords and the Garnet came down to the sixth singles, Kenyon’s Weston Noall ’18 versus Swarthmore’s Evan Han. Although Noall dropped the first set 5-7, he was able to work his way back taking the second set 6-4. Then, as the last Lord still playing, Noall was able to seal the victory for the Lords by once again taking the last set 6-4. The match took 32 games total and added to the 57 games Noall played on Saturday.
After beating the Garnet to win their 10th straight, the Lords stayed at Swarthmore and played the No. 7 Amherst Mammoths on Easter Sunday. The only victory came from Diehl, which also happened to be the only match to go into a third set.
On Wednesday, the Lords started off their first home match since spring break with a sweep of the doubles portion against the Denison Big Red. The Lords proceeded to claim victory in all six singles matches and claimed their fifth shutout.
The Lords then moved on to make quick work of the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops, conceding only one doubles match en route to a 8-1 win. The win was highlighted by Michael Liu ’18, when he got trapped on the net as his opponent lofted the ball over his head. In pursuit of the ball, with his back to the net, Lui perfectly timed a through-the-legs return shot which proved too difficult for his opponent to handle.
The Lords were victorious again against Wooster College on Wednesday night. Diehl won his singles match, winning 6-2 and 6-0.
The Lords will next play on Saturday afternoon, when they will travel to Oberlin College to take on the Yeomen.