DENVER – The University of Denver men's tennis team (2-0, 0-0 Summit) won all but one of its completed matches against Air Force to post a 6-1 win on Saturday evening at Denver Tennis Park.
 
Denver improved by a point over its performance in the season opener against UC Davis on Friday. After again winning the doubles point, the Pioneers went on to capture victories in five of the six doubles matches and saw their only loss coming in a 10-point match tiebreak.
 
Coach's Notes:
From head coach Drew Eberly: "I'm very pleased with the guys' effort today, across the board. All nine spots showed up. Air Force is a very good team with good players, and [AFA head coach Evan Urbina] does a great job, year in and year out; so I'm very pleased with how the guys came out and handled their business.
 
"Yesterday, we had some spots that didn't compete up to our standards. We addressed that throughout the day and talked a lot about it, and the guys responded very well. I'm so very proud of the way they fought on and off the court, with the guys cheering.
 
"Doubles has been very strong so far, so I'm very happy to see that it's coming along nicely with the new group. I thought 3 and 4 singles with Riku (Yamaguchi) and Sam (Rovai) did a very, very good job imposing their will on some very good players.
 
"We've got a final match tomorrow for the weekend against a very good Montana State team, so I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully everyone comes out and watched during a snowy Sunday."
 
Doubles:
DU used two 6-3 wins at Nos. 2 and 3 doubles to claim the night's opening point with the team of juniors Raffaello Papajcik and Ryoma Mishiro starting things off with a win. The duo traded breaks against Air Force to begin the match before retaking a break lead at 5-3 and successfully serving it out. Minutes later, DU freshman Theo Coats and senior Daniel Sancho Arbizu clinched the point with their own 6-3 victory after claiming the first break of the match, which proved to be the only lead they needed.
 
In the dual's only abandoned match, Denver's No. 1 team of graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox and senior Rikuto Yamaguchi were on serve and a point away from 5-all in a tight battle.
 
Singles:
Freshman Samuel Rovai posted the top singles scoreline of the night, dropping only three games on his way to putting Denver up, 2-0, overall. He turned a break in his first return game until a quick 5-1 lead before serving out the first set, and he repeated that process in nearly identical fashion in the second set. He converted four of his eight break points earned while fighting off all five break points he faced against his own serve.
 
Sancho Arbizu finished shortly after Rovai, winning in straight sets to get DU within a point of the victory. Twice in the first set, he went down a break but immediately got back on even terms before breaking in the set's final game to win it, 6-4. In the second set, he broke in his first return game and never gave up the lead, eventually breaking for a second time in the final game for 6-2.
 
Yamaguchi sealed the Denver win with matching 6-2 sets at No. 3 singles, breaking early in each set and then breaking again in the final games. He was dominant on serve, not facing a single break point and landing 82 percent of his first serves for the match.
 
Air Force earned its only point of the day at No. 5 singles in what was the only match to see the players split results in the first two sets. After DU's Mishiro battled back from a set down, AFA's Matthew Staton won a back-and-forth match tiebreak, 10-8.
 
Just moments after the No. 5 match wrapped, DU's Robb-Wilcox closed out a second-set tiebreak to seal a straight-sets win at No. 6 singles. The opening frame saw holds for the servers through the first eight games before the Denver grad student captured the first break lead at 5-4 and served it out at love. AFA went ahead an early break to begin the second before Robb-Wilcox got back on level terms at 2-all, part of a streak that saw breaks in seven of eight games. The players held in their final service games to force a breaker where Robb-Wilcox used a six-point win streak to get to match points at 6-1 and won it two points later.
 
Papajcik had the night's final win, doing so in straight sets. His first set remained on serve through the first nine games with few break opportunities for either player until the Denver junior won the deuce point on his opponents serve to win it, 6-4. In similar fashion, he would win a second set that stayed on serve all the way through until the final game. Up 6-5 and with AFA serving to get to a tiebreak, Papajcik jumped out to a 0-40 lead and closed it out at his first opportunity.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team ends its opening weekend of the 2025 season on Sunday, January 19, when it hosts Montana State at Denver Tennis Park at 10:30 a.m. MT.
 
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