COLUMBUS, Ohio – The University of Denver men's tennis team (4-1, 0-0 Summit) rebounded from its first loss of the season to earn a 4-1 victory over Louisville in the ITA Kickoff Weekend consolation match on Sunday morning.
 
Despite a 7 a.m. MT start, the Pioneers earned its four points with straight-sets wins in singles – including a double bagel from freshman Samuel Rovai and a first collegiate singles appearance from fellow freshman Theo Coats.
 
Doubles:
Denver and Louisville split results in the first two doubles matches to finish with the Cardinal taking the No. 2 court and DU's senior Daniel Sancho Arbizu and Coats claiming the win on Court 3. The point came down to a tight battle between the No. 1 duos where a late break in Louisville's favor decided it.
 
Singles:
DU responded with a strong start in singles, winning five of the six first sets on its way to four consecutive wins to clinch the dual.
 
After suffering the first loss of his young collegiate career, Rovai had the most dominant performance for any Pioneer so far in 2025, notching a perfect 6-0 6-0 score in No. 4 singles to level the team scoreline at 1-1.
 
Fellow DU newcomer, graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox, moved up to the No. 5 slot for the first time with Denver and won, 6-2 6-3. A break in his second return game proved to be all he needed in the first set, though he added an insurance break one return game later as well. The second set followed a similar pattern with a break in his favor in the third game and a second in what would be the final game with his opponent serving to stay in the match.
 
Sancho Arbizu matched Robb-Wilcox's first set, game by game to win it, 6-2. He fell behind a break early in the second and eventually trailed 1-5 before rallying back to get to 5-5 on his way to a tiebreaker. There, too, his opponent held the early advantage before the Denver senior fought back to never trail after the changeover and to win it on his second match point.
 
For the first time in his collegiate career, Coats slotted into the singles lineup and came away with the clinching point for Denver at the No. 6 spot. After a couple traded breaks to start the match, he settled in and broke again in the eighth game before serving the set out at 6-4. He fell behind a break after his first service game in the second set and would eventually face a 2-5 deficit before getting into a tiebreak. In the breaker, he also faced a lopsided scoreline, trailing 0-5 before rattling off seven consecutive points to win it, the match and the dual for Denver.
 
In one of the two unfinished matches, junior Raffaello Papajcik won first set that remained on serve until he broke for 6-5 late. He came back from a break down in the second to force a tiebreak that also stayed tight and was abandoned at 6-6 after he fought off one set point.
 
Senior Rikuto Yamaguchi dropped his opening set in the No. 3 singles match but got into a third set after winning his own tiebreak in the second set, doing so with a perfect 7-0 run in the breaker. His third set sat a 1-2 when the dual was clinched.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team returns home to Denver Tennis Park for two matches, first hosting Cal Poly on Friday, January 31, and then welcoming Northern Arizona on Sunday, February 2.
 
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