WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The University of Denver men's tennis team (2-0, 0-0 Summit) captured a late 4-3 win at Purdue to finish its opening weekend on Sunday.
 
After losing the doubles point and the first singles match to conclude, and then after trailing 2-3 overall, Denver won the final two points available to earn its second victory of the season.
 
Doubles:
Senior Nicolas Herrero Cuesta and junior Rikuto Yamaguchi claimed the first win of the day at No. 2 doubles, trading breaks early before again taking a break lead at 4-3 before closing out the match.
 
Courts 1 and 3 finished within seconds of each other, each in the favor of the Boilermakers. Graduate students Marvin Schaber and Anish Sriniketh went down a break midway through the match and couldn't get back on serve while junior Daniel Sancho Arbizu and sophomore Raffaello Papajcik broke in the first game but were broken twice in consecutive service games.
 
Singles:
After Purdue took a 2-0 lead, Denver got its first point of the day from Sriniketh in No. 5 singles. The graduate student was down an early break in the first set before winning four-straight games and taking the set. He broke in consecutive return games in the second set to take it, 6-2.
 
Herrero Cuesta joined Sriniketh in winning his second singles match of the season, also in straight sets and beginning with a bagel. The second set proved to be tighter with multiple traded breaks before the senior took a final break lead at 5-4 and closed it at 6-4.
 
Purdue drew within a point of victory with a win at No. 6 singles. Schaber kept Denver alive in two sets in his No. 3 singles win. He took his first break lead of the match in the third game of the first set before going up, 5-2. Though his opponent earned one break back, Schaber managed to take it, 6-4. He found himself down an early break in the second set but fought back and eventually forced a tiebreak. In the breaker, he faced a 1-3 deficit before winning the final six points.
 
Sancho Arbizu's first set at No. 2 singles mirrored Schaber with the junior holding a 5-2 lead but needing two shots to serve it out. After dropping the second set, he broke immediately to begin the third set. The players would trade breaks before Sancho Arbizu retook the lead at 4-2 and then broke again in the match's final game to seal to DU win.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team hosts its first dual matches of the season, beginning with Utah on Friday, February 2, at 5 p.m. MT at Denver Tennis Park.
 
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