FLAGSTAFF, Arizona – The No. 71-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team (8-4, 0-0 Summit) found itself in a back-and-forth contest at Northern Arizona and came away with a 4-3 victory on Saturday evening.
The teams alternated points won from start to finish with Denver claiming the doubles point and then sealing the victory with a three-set win from graduate student
Connor Robb-Wilcox at No. 5 singles in the night's final match.
Doubles:
NAU started the dual with a 6-1 win at No. 2 doubles, but Denver used two 6-3 decisions to claim the first point for a 1-0 lead.
Robb-Wilcox and sophomore
Theo Coats drew DU level in the doubles fight with their win in the top lineup spot, extending their win streak to six including three in a row at No. 1 doubles.
DU's No. 3 team of senior
Raffaello Papajcik and freshman
Aaron Beduhn then clinched the point with their own 6-3 win, giving them two wins in as many days by such a score.
Singles:
All six singles matches proved competitive with four of them going to third sets while the remaining two saw three combined tiebreaks and a fourth set decided at 7-5.
The first match to wrap up came at the No. 6 spot to bring NAU level at 1-1. DU's Beduhn fought back after dropping his first set, answering with a 6-2 second set but ultimately falling in a third frame.
Senior
Ryoma Mishiro reclaimed the lead for Denver at No. 4 singles, doing so after also going down a set. Like Beduhn, he forced a third set after capturing the second with a 6-2 scoreline, and he finished it off with a 6-4 win in the final set.
The host team again pulled even with the next match, getting to 2-2 with a win in two sets on Court 1. The first set went to an extended tiebreak with NAU's Noa Tcherniack sneaking it out, 8-6, before breaking late in the second set to get the win a 7-5 over Papajcik.
Coats put Denver within a point of the dual, winning in two tiebreaks, the first at 8-6 and then grabbing the second set at 7-5 in the breaker. It was only the second time in his NCAA career facing two tiebreaks in a straight-sets match and his first win in such a match.
Once more, Northern Arizona pulled level to stay alive at 3-3, earning a three-set win at No. 2 singles. Both players won a 6-4 set sandwiched around a 9-7 tiebreak win for NAU's Jakub Jedrzejczalk with the Lumberjack player taking the win in the last set.
Everything came down to the No. 5 match that was also in a third set. Robb-Wilcox took a set lead after winning a tiebreak, 7-4, but NAU's Takumi Katsuda forced a deciding set after winning the second, 6-3. A couple of breaks for the Pioneer ended in a 6-2 victory for Robb-Wilcox and an eighth dual win for Denver so far in 2026.
Up Next:
The University of Denver men's tennis team begins the back half of a six-match road trip when it travels to Penn on Sunday, March 15.
