Men's tennis wins second straight dual, upsets Redlands

Tuesday, March 28

Redlands, CA

5:00 PM

UC Santa Cruz Athletics

Redlands

Aziz Albayouk clinched the match against Bulldogs

3/28/2023 9:30:00 PM | Men's Tennis

REDLANDS- UC Santa Cruz men's tennis made it 2-0 for their Spring Break trip with a nail-biting 5-4 dual win over No. 32 Redlands on Tuesday afternoon.

The day started with the Banana Slugs going ahead 2-1 in doubles, thanks to Sam Hall and Andre Mardirossian winning No. 2 8-7 in a tiebreaker.
Hall then won his singles match at No. 3 in straight sets before the Bulldogs rallied with the next three wins.
Trailing 4-3, seniors Aziz Albayouk and Mardirossian came through with three-set wins to give the Banana Slugs the win. Mardirossian outpaced Stefan Hester at No. 2 before Albayouk came through with the clincher in a back-and-forth match at No. 6, with his serve being returned out of bounds to send the whole UC Santa Cruz team into cheers.

"It was a testament to our team's resilience," said Interim Head Coach Mike Napoli. "It was a classic three-and-a-half-hour battle: we were tied 4-all, both teams were cheering, and Aziz held off being down a break to be victorious at 7-5."

The Banana Slugs wrap up the trip on Thursday with another tough opponent when they visit third-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

Singles
1	Nils Plutat (UR) def. Lucas Chen 7-5, 6-2
2	Andre Mardirossian (UCSC) def. Stefan Hester 6-4, 4-6, 6-4
3	Sam Hall (UCSC) def. Bryce Keim 6-4, 6-3
4	Jack Mattox (UR) def. Praneet Varade 6-2, 6-2
5	Donovan Lilov (UR) def. Andrew Tjoa 6-4, 6-3
6	Aziz Albayouk (UCSC) def. Josh Davydov 7-5, 2-6, 7-5
	Order of finish: 3,4,5,1,2,6
Doubles
1	Keim/Plutat (UR) def. Tjoa/Chen 8-6
2	Mardirossian /Hall (UCSC) def. Hester/ Mattox 8-7
3	Varade/Lam (UCSC) def. Davidorf/Davydov 8-5
	Order of finish: 1,3,2