STORRS, Conn. – The Merrimack College men's tennis team traveled down to UConn this weekend to compete in a tournament to open their fall season. The Warriors competed against three teams, playing one match on Saturday against Sacred Heart University, and two Sunday, facing off against UConn and Marist. The Warriors looked to get their feet wet to start the season and three matches was the perfect way to do that. Merrimack was competitive in all three matches, and took home a victory against UConn.
Head Coach Alex Loyer: "This was a good experience for us playing our first division 1 tournament. The level of competition was consistently high. Our guys competed well and played much better on day two than on day one. We will take a lot out of this weekend as we prepare ourselves to face similar competition this spring."
Rapid Recap
- Merrimack's second pairing in doubles of sophomore Marshall Wood and Classmate Alec Mackay Rodriguez earned one of the two doubles victories of the whole weekend, where they topped UConn in a close one, pulling out the 8-7 victory. The fourth ranked duo of sophomore Hassan El Alami and freshman Pedro De Godoy Mancini also pulled out a victory, where they topped the fourth entry from SHU in a tiebreaker 8-7.
- The match against UConn was the Warriors most successful of the weekend, where the Warriors won one out of the three doubles matches, and four out the six singles matches.
- In the top spot, senior Denis Davydov won in three sets (4-6, 6-3,10-7), taking home his first victory of the season. Sophomores Conrad Koch and Rodriguez won in straight sets at the fourth and fifth spot, both winning their matches (6-4, 6-1).
- El Alami took home a victory in the six spot in a three set thriller, winning (6-1, 4-6, 10-6) in a tiebreak.
- Koch and Mancini stood out on the weekend, both taking home victories in the match against Marist as well. Koch won in three sets (5-7, 6-4,10-8), while Mancini's match also took three sets to secure the victory, winning (7-6, 2-6,10-5).
Up Next
More tournament play awaits Merrimack on the 28
th-29
th of September, where the Warriors host their first matches of the season at the Merrimack Invitational at North Andover High School.
