SPOKANE, Washington – The University of Denver men's tennis team (10-5, 0-0 Summit) earned its second sweep of the season with a 7-0 win at Gonzaga on Wednesday afternoon.
 
For a fifth consecutive match, Denver came out on top in doubles, setting up the singles squad for another six wins for the Pioneers.
 
Doubles:
DU and Gonzaga split results in the first two doubles matches to wrap up before Denver's No. 3 team of senior Raffaello Papajcik and freshman Aaron Beduhn clinched the doubles point in a tiebreak. The teams traded breaks in the middle section of the match, though the remainder of play went the way of the servers, sending things to a breaker where the Pioneers came out on top.
 
The day's first match went to Denver's senior Ryoma Mishiro and sophomore Samuel Rovai on Court 2 for the duo third consecutive win. A break in the third game turned into a 5-1 lead for the Pioneers and two games later, they had the win in hand.
 
The No. 1 singles match saw DU graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox and sophomore Theo Coats fight back after conceding a 3-0 lead to GU's Branchetti/Fairclough. Coats/Robb-Wilcox got back to level terms at 4-4, but another break for Gonzaga gave the home team what would be its only win on the day.
 
Singles:
Despite the convincing 7-0 final score, singles play proved to be competitive with four of the six matches going to final sets.
 
The first of two straight-sets wins for Denver came from Rovai, who returned to the No. 2 slot after two matches played in the top singles position over DU's last two duals. The DU sophomore fell behind a break to start play but quickly responded with a break of his own. A few more back-and-forth games ended with a late break in favor of the Pioneer, ending in a 6-4 DU set. Rovai took control of the second set relatively early, claiming a 4-1 lead on his way to closing it out at 6-2.
 
Robb-Wilcox put Denver within a point of the clinch with his second win in two sets in as many matches played and his sixth such result in 2026 so far. After exchanging breaks to begin play, he reclaimed a break lead for 4-2, his second of four consecutive games won to end the first set, 6-2. The graduate student also held a 4-2 lead in the second set, though Gonzaga's Tom Dunlop held serve twice to force DU to serve it out, which he did successfully for 6-4.
 
For a team-leading fourth time, Coats came through with the clinching point for Denver – this time, doing so from a set down for the second time in 2026. He began his comeback with a three-game win streak to open the second set and ultimately lost just one game in the set midway through. He also claimed a break early in the third set for a 2-1 lead and with four more holds of serve, he earned his 10^th win at No. 3 singles this year and secured the dual for DU.
 
Shortly after Coats closed out his match, Papajcik wrapped up his at the No. 1 spot, also in a third set. The DU senior won his first set, 6-4, after capturing what would be the decisive break in the match's third game. He conceded a break early in the second set but fought to get back on serve for 3-3, only to see a late break give Gonzaga's Jay Fairclough a 7-5 win and sending play to a final set. Papajcik responded by not losing another game, winning a set in a bagel for the first time in dual match play this year.
 
Mishiro also won his match in three sets, winning the final four games of the first frame to take it, 6-2, at No. 4 singles. He held a break lead to begin the second set before GU's Nicholas Reeves turned things around and ultimately won it, 7-5. In the third set, Mishiro claimed back-to-back brakes for a 5-2 lead. Reeves held in the penultimate game before the Denver senior served it out at 6-3.
 
Securing the clinch was freshman Beduhn at No. 6 singles, joining Papajcik and Mishiro in earning a three-set win that nearly ended in two sets before his opponent won the second set, 7-5. In the opening set, he earned a break for a 5-3 lead and served it out two games later. With a break to begin the second set, Beduhn held control of the set until Gonzaga's Diego Herrera fought back for 4-4 and then broke again late to force a third set. In that final frame, Beduhn again broke for a 2-0 lead but was able to hold onto the lead this time around, successfully finishing it off at 6-3.
 
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team returns home to begin Summit League play when it hosts Illinois State and Oral Roberts on consecutive days at Denver Tennis Park on April 3-4.