Medford, MA – The Ephs closed out a weekend doubleheader on Sunday with a 6–1 loss on the road against No. 2 Tufts. Coming off a strong performance against Connecticut College the day before, Williams showed grit in several matches but couldn't convert enough opportunities across the lineup.
Doubles started tightly, with all three courts producing competitive stretches. On Court 1,
Shawn Berdia and
Nicholas Chen came out sharp but dropped momentum midway through, falling 6–2.
Diego Marin and
Jack Ling battled well on Court 3 before Tufts pulled away for a 6–3 result. The closest match came on Court 2, where
Simon Volkema and
Andrew Chong pushed their opponents to a tiebreak but were edged out 7–6 (4), giving Tufts the doubles point.
In singles, Tufts claimed early leads on several courts. On Court 1, Chen couldn't find his range consistently and fell 6–2, 6–0. Berdia stayed close on Court 2 but came up just short in both sets, 6–4, 7–5. Volkema put together a strong start on Court 3, taking the first set 6–4, but dropped a second-set tiebreak and ultimately fell in the match tiebreak, 10–5.
The Ephs' point came from first-year
Jack Ling, who continued his impressive stretch of form with a composed 7–5, 6–2 win on Court 4. On Court 5, Marin had a tough time settling in and fell 6–2, 6–1. Chong wrapped up the day on Court 6 with one of the closest matches, losing 7–6 (3), 7–5 after two tightly contested sets.
While the result didn't go Williams' way, there were competitive stretches and moments to build on heading into another key weekend of conference play.
Eph head coach
Dan Greenberg reflected on the match, saying: "Tufts played a very complete match today. I thought we had good looks in a bunch of spots, but we let a few chances slip and they made us pay. There were definitely moments to build on, especially Jack's win and some of the tighter battles, and we'll regroup and be ready for a big weekend ahead."
Now 6–6 overall and 4–3 in the NESCAC, the Ephs return home next weekend for a match at noon on Saturday, April 19
th against Middlebury.
Doubles:
- Vuksanovic/Gonzalez (TU) def. Berdia/Chen (WIL) 6-2
- Ganchev/Maes (TU) def. Volkema/Chong (WIL) 7-6 (4)
- Acaroglu/Macintosh (TU) def. Marin/Ling (WIL) 6-3
Singles:
- Vuksanovic (TU) def. Chen (WIL) 6-2, 6-0
- Gonzalez (TU) def. Berdia (WIL) 6-4, 7-5
- Acaroglu (TU) def. Volkema (WIL) 4-6, 7-6 (5), 10-5
- Ling (WIL) def. Macintosh (TU) 7-5, 6-2
- Djokic (TU) def. Marin (WIL) 6-2, 6-1
- Mastrogamvrakis (TU) def. Chong (WIL) 7-6 (3), 7-5
