The UMBC men's tennis team improved to 7-3 on the season as they
defeated Navy, 4-0, at Twin Lakes Racquet Club in Baltimore.
Navy had won four consecutive matches and fell to 11-6 on the
season.
The two squads split the Nos. 1 and 2 doubles matches before
UMBC pulled out a dramatic comeback at No. 3 doubles to capture the
doubles point. Junior Adam
Duprat (Bobigny, France/Institute Deschamp) and
junior Rasid
Winklaar(Willemstad, Curacao/Abraham Baldwin College) were down
two breaks at 6-2, but battled back to knot the match at 8-all and
force a tiebreaker. They blanked Navy's Heyward Drayton and Jeremy
New in the breaker, 7-0, to complete the comeback win.
UMBC carried the momentum to singles, where the match concluded
after the Retrievers won the first three matches. Winklaar ousted
Zach Nicholson, 6-3, 6-1 at No. 3 singles and UMBC No. 1 Cristian
Hodel (Calarasi, Romania/Boise State) held off Owen
Bullard, 6-4, 7-5. UMBC No. 2 Joe
Adewumi (Phoenix, Ariz./North Canyon) won the first set
over Marcus Rebersak, 6-4, and was serving for the match at 6-5 in
the second. But Rebersak fought off two match points in the
12th game and an additional match point in the
tie-breaker to force a third set. However, Adewumi played a solid
third set and triumphed, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-3.
The other matches were halted after UMBC had clinched the
match.
"I was very proud of the team today," Head Coach Rob Hubbard
said. " We have been working very hard on our doubles and to win
that point gave us a nice boost going into the
singles. The guys came out strong for the singles and
dominated from the beginning. It was a very good result
against a good Navy team."
UMBC will play its first conference foe of the 2011 season when
they entertain Hartford on March 12.
