DES MOINES, Iowa – The No. 43-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team (23-0, 5-0 Summit) won the 2024 Summit League Men's Tennis Championship with a 4-0 sweep at Drake on Saturday afternoon.
This is the sixth Summit League title in Denver history and its first since 2021. It is also the program's seventh overall conference championship.
With the win, Denver remains the only undefeated men's Division I team in the country at 23-0 and has secured an automatic berth to the 2024 NCAA National Championships.
Doubles:
Denver's doubles squad came back from early deficits to claim the first point of the day for the 15
th match in a row. Drake took the No. 1 match and held a break lead in the No. 3 slot after about 30 minutes of play when the Pioneers began to turn things around.
Graduate student
Anish Sriniketh and sophomore
Raffaello Papajcik responded to going down a break by breaking immediately back to get to 4-4 and consolidated for 5-4. With the pressure on, they broke yet again to level the doubles battle at one match apiece.
The doubles point came down to the No. 2 match where Denver graduate student
Marvin Schaber and junior
Daniel Sancho Arbizu earned what would prove to be the only break of the match to take a 4-2 lead. Two holds later, they won the match to give Denver the 1-0 lead overall.
Singles:
The Pioneers started strong in singles with five of six, first sets won. Senior
Charlie Miller posted one of those first-set wins at No. 5 singles, getting the first break of the match in the seventh game and then holding for a 5-3 lead. He broke once more to claim the set at 6-3. To begin the second set, he took a break lead at 3-0 and eventually stretched it to 5-2 before again breaking in the final game.
At No. 4 singles, Sriniketh also won his opening set with a late break to go up 5-4 and served it out in the following game. He continued momentum into the second frame in a similar fashion as Miller, turning a 3-0 lead into a 5-2 lead and served it out.
Fellow grad student Schaber sealed the win for Denver with another straight-sets win in his No. 3 singles match. Both players held serve through the first nine games but with Schaber up 5-4, Drake's Matija Matic was the first to drop serve, giving the set to Schaber. The first half of the second set started on serve as well until Schaber again broke for a 4-2 lead. That break was all he needed and with two more holds, he claimed the set at 6-3 to give Denver the win.
Sancho Arbizu was deep into a second set at No. 2 singles after winning the first set, 6-4, with a break in the final game. He faced a 1-3 deficit in the second set before getting back level, and the set sat at 5-5 when the match was abandoned.
In the No. 1 singles match, Herrero Cuesta also rallied back from a 0-3 hole in the first set before getting back on serve at 3-4. Facing the possibility of a tiebreak, the senior earned his second break of the day in the 12
th and final game. He was down 2-5 in the second set when Schaber clinched the title.
Papajcik dropped his first set at No. 6 singles but came out strong in the second set with a break lead at 3-0, though Drake's Ollie Sonesson Lidholt got back to even terms and was up a break at 5-4, though the match was not finished.
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team has earned the Summit League's automatic berth into the 2024 NCAA Men's Tennis Championship, set to begin on May 3-5. DU will await official selections to be announced during the NCAA Selection Show on Monday, April 29, at 4 p.m. MT.
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