DENVER – The University of Denver men's tennis team (13-6, 3-0 Summit) defeated its third straight Summit League opponent by a score of 6-1 with its win over Omaha at Denver Tennis Park on Friday afternoon.
 
In all three of the team's Summit League matches so far, the Pioneers have earned a 6-1 win. In total, Denver has won four consecutive matches by such a final score.
 
DU clinched the win at 4-0 and ultimately went up 6-0 before Omaha earned its only point of the day in the final singles match to wrap up.
 
Doubles:
The two teams put up a fight for the doubles point, seeing Denver come from behind after dropping the No. 1 match. Juniors Raffaello Papajcik and Ryoma Mishiro leveled the doubles standings after turning a 3-0 lead into a 6-3 win.
 
The point came down to a tiebreak on the No. 2 court. DU's team of Theo Coats and Daniel Sancho Arbizu raced out to a 6-2 lead in the breaker before UNO won four straight points to even it up at 6-6. The Pioneers responded by winning the next two points out of the changeover to take it, 8-6.
 
Singles:
Graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox used the best singles result of his DU career – losing just a single game – to give Denver a 2-0 overall lead. He won the match's first five games and then its final seven games.
 
Denver claimed a 3-0 lead with a win at No. 3 singles from senior Rikuto Yamaguchi. In the first set, he broke in the third and seventh games before serving it out, 6-2. The second set started on serve before Yamaguchi claimed the only break for 3-2 and consolidated it on his way to a 6-3 win.
 
Sancho Arbizu clinched the dual for Denver and kept his straight-sets win streak alive, now at 10. A deuce-point break gave him a 3-2 lead, his second game won out of six straight that stretched into the second set. A couple times, the players traded breaks in the second set, leading to a tiebreak to decide it. The DU senior went up 4-2 at the changeover and ultimately won it, 7-3.
 
Mishiro claimed a singles win against his former team, capturing two 6-3 sets for DU's fifth point won. After a couple quick breaks in the opening set, things got a bit tighter late, though he was able to hang on and serve it out. He also went up a break in the first half of the second set but this time was able to maintain the lead for the rest of the way.
 
Papajcik gave Denver another straight-sets win, his coming at the No. 2 spot. He earned the match's first break for a 4-2 lead and won the set's final four games. Omaha went up 2-0 and stretched it to 3-1 to start the second set, but Papajcik responded with another four-game win streak to finish off the match at 6-4.
 
UNO prevented the DU sweep after winning the No. 4 singles match, breaking late in the first set and midway through the second to take it with two 6-4 sets.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team hosts its non-conference finale against No. 65-ranked New Mexico on Sunday, April 6, at 11 a.m. MT at Denver Tennis Park.
 
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