DES MOINES, Iowa – The No. 71-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team (15-5, 4-0 Summit) secured the 2026 Summit League regular-season crown – with a match in hand – after posting a 6-1 win at Drake on Friday afternoon.
 
For the seventh consecutive season and the 11^th overall, Denver came away with the league's regular-season title, stretching its win streak in Summit League play to 39 – and with the chance to add another in its regular-season finale on Sunday at Omaha.
 
In what is Denver's final season in the Summit League, the Pioneers have not lost a regular-season league match since February 18, 2018.
 
Doubles:
After dropping its first doubles point in more than a month in its last dual, Denver got back on track with wins from the Nos. 1 and 2 courts on Friday.
 
The No. 2 team of senior Ryoma Mishiro and sophomore Samuel Rovai kicked things off with a 6-3 win to get DU halfway to the point. They held a break at 2-1 but saw Drake's Gonzalez/Johnson get back on serve briefly at 3-3 before Mishiro/Rovai rattled off three consecutive games to finish it off.
 
Graduate student Connor Robb-Wilcox and sophomore Theo Coats won their team's best 12^th doubles match in a dual with their own 6-3 win a few minutes later. They, too, traded breaks in the first half of the match before reclaiming an advantage at 3-2 and holding serve three more times to seal the win and clinch the 1-0 lead for Denver.
 
Senior Raffaello Papajcik and freshman Aaron Beduhn had just broken for 5-4 – after being down 1-4 earlier in the match – at No. 3 doubles but did not finish the match with the point already determined.
 
Singles:
Denver's singles squad won the first five matches of the day, clinching the dual at 4-0 on its way to the team's final score of 6-1 overall.
 
In almost exactly an hour, Beduhn captured the day's first singles point, losing only three total games at No. 6 singles to mark his best dual-match result thus far. The first set saw the Denver freshman walk away with four total breaks – including two in a row against his opponent's serve in the middle of the set. He did concede his serve once but still finished on top, 6-1. In the second set, he first gained the break advantage for a 3-1 lead and broke again in what would be the final game for 6-2.
 
Papajcik put Denver within a point of the dual with just one more game lost than his doubles partner Beduhn, grabbing two 6-2 sets to stretch his singles win streak to seven – the last five coming in straight sets. In the first set, he claimed the only breaks of serve for either player, first doing so to go ahead, 3-1, and then again to finish it in the eighth and final game. Drake's Christian Winstead broke to start the second set, but Papajcik answered immediately with two consecutive breaks of his own to once again claim a 3-1 lead. As he did in the first set, he broke in what would be the final game to take it at 6-2.
 
For the fifth time in 2026, Robb-Wilcox captured the clinching singles point for Denver and doing so after winning 12 consecutive games after facing a 0-5 deficit in the first set. He surrendered his first two service games but fought back to not just get level but to take the first set, 7-5. He continued with all of the momentum in the second set, taking it 6-0 to win his second bagel set in as many matches.
 
Rovai gave DU a 5-0 lead overall, winning for the 10^th time at No. 2 singles this season. The Denver sophomore earned what would be the only break of the first set, doing so in the sixth game for a 4-2 lead on his way to a 6-3 win. The second set was a touch more competitive, seeing Drake's Samuel Melaga going ahead, 3-1, but Rovai answered with an immediate break back. Things were all even at 4-4 when Rovai broke for a second time in the set and went on to hold in the next game, collecting the win with a 6-4 result.
 
Coats rallied from a set down to win a match for the fourth time this dual season, rebounding after losing the first set, 2-6, to force a match tiebreak with a 7-5 second set. He held a double-break lead up 5-1 in the second set before Drake's Alan Gonzalez began his own mini-comeback, breaking in consecutive Coats service games to level the set at 5-5. A hold from Coats gave him a 6-5 lead where he broke for a third time to take the set and force the decider. In the 10-point tiebreak, Coats stayed in the lead sans the first two points, eventually winning the final five points to claim it, 10-4.
 
Drake prevented the Pioneers' sweep in a tight No. 5 singles match, holding off a Mishiro rally in the first set to win in a tiebreak, 7-4, before again breaking late in the second set to take the win at 7-5.
 
Up Next:
The No. 71-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team heads to Omaha for its regular-season finale on Sunday, April 19, at 1 p.m. CT/12 p.m. MT.