EVANSTON, Illinois – The University of Denver men's tennis team (5-3, 0-0 Summit) pushed No. 54-ranked Northwestern in a three-and-half-hour battle on Sunday but fell just shy in a 3-4 loss on the road.
 
The fight for the doubles point came down to a tiebreak in the final match to finish, giving DU a 1-0 lead heading into singles. A win from graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox doubled Denver's lead before the host team leveled things with wins at Nos. 1 and 4 singles. Sophomore Samuel Rovai lifted DU back in front for a 3-2 lead, but NU once again drew even at No. 3 singles.
 
The dual came down to a three-set battle at No. 6 singles where freshman Aaron Beduhn nearly completed a rally from a set down but narrowly fell, 4-6, in the final set.
 
Doubles:
For the second match in a row, Denver took a 1-0 lead after capturing the doubles point, this time doing so after dropping the first match. Beduhn and senior Raffaello Papajcik came back after giving up a break in their first game in the No. 3 slot to go up 5-2 and eventually 6-3 to keep DU alive in doubles.
 
DU's No. 2 team of Robb-Wilcox and sophomore Theo Coats also came back after going down a break in their match, eventually finding themselves in a tiebreak to decide which team would win the point. A minibreak for a 2-1 lead set them up for what would become a 7-4 win.
 
Singles:
Though five of the six singles matches ended in straight sets, most featured competitive play all the way through.
 
Helping lead DU's singles contingent was Robb-Wilcox, whose four total games lost were the fewest by any player of the day. His fifth win of the season thus far started with a 5-0 run to begin play before he took the first set, 6-1. The start of the second set stayed close until he went up 4-3 as part of a three-game win streak to seal the second point of the day for DU.
 
Northwestern got on the board with a win in the No. 4 match and leveled the scoreboard at 2-2 after late breaks in each of the two sets at No. 1 singles.
 
Denver reclaimed the overall lead with Rovai's victory in the No. 2 spot, his second win of the weekend and his sixth in the last seven matches. He surrendered his serve in the first game but responded with an immediate break back on his way to a 6-4 first set. The second set stayed on serve until the eighth game when Rovai went up a break, but NU's Cyrus Mahjoob broke back for 5-5. Two more service holds sent the match to a tiebreak, where he pitched a shutout, 7-0, to get the win.
 
The host team again pulled level, this time with its own win in a second-set tiebreak that went 14 points on court 5.
 
All attention fell to No. 6 singles, where Denver freshman Beduhn had fought back after losing the first eight games to get to a third set after capturing the second frame, 7-5. He broke to begin the final set but ended back on even terms at 3-3. NU's Cooper Han went up a break in the ninth game, though Beduhn fought off two match points in the next game. He was one point away from getting to 5-5 but clipped the net to fall just short, giving the No. 54-ranked Wildcats the narrow 4-3 win.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team returns to Colorado for two matches, starting with a home dual against BYU on Friday, February 27, at Denver Tennis Park before visiting Air Force on Sunday, March 1.