In what was a key test for Indiana men's tennis Saturday in New Hampshire, the Hoosiers survived the day and continued their strong start, defeating Dartmouth College and improving to 5-2 on the season.
Indiana redshirt junior Facundo Yunis and his doubles three partner sophomore Braeden Gelletich struggled early in the day, quickly dropping the first match 2-6. But graduate student Michael Andre and sophomore Matteo Antonescu, who’ve had good chemistry so far this season, prevailed 6-4, despite some back forth. This is the doubles partners third win in a row together. That left it up to the doubles one team to steal the point.
Redshirt junior Sam Landau and senior Jip van Assendelft played a gritty set of tennis, swapping haymakers with Dartmouth's doubles one squad. However, the tie-break game resulted in a loss for the Hoosiers and gave Dartmouth its first point of the day 6-7 (4-7).
In singles, Landau played a close first set but began to pull away in the second, evening the team score at 1-1 with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over the Dartmouth singles one player. Like Landau, Yunis won in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 and gave the Hoosiers the advantage with just four matches to go on the day.
Those were the last matches to end in straight sets. Andre won his first set in a 7-6 tiebreak but was ultimately outmatched, losing 7-6, 3-6, 3-6. Dartmouth tied the overall score 2-2.
Every match from then on was tight. After dropping the first set, Van Assendelft gave the Hoosiers the upper hand as he grinded out the last two sets and won 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 to ensure Indiana would only need one more win to seal the day. However, soon after he picked up the win, Gelletich fell 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 5-7.
With the overall score now 3-3, it was up to results of the singles six match. Junior Ben Pomeranets struggled early, going down in the first set 3-6.
In the second set, things ramped up. Pomeranets and his opponent traded off serves, resulting in a tiebreak. Pomeranets stayed strong and won 7-5 in the tiebreak, leaving it all up to a final set.
The third set began bleak for Pomeranets. He trailed 3-5 and needed to break his opponent’s serve multiple times to win. But with the pressure on, he won four straight games and stole the win from Dartmouth by a final score of 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5.
The Hoosiers will continue their road trip next weekend as they head south to Memphis, Tennessee, to take on the University of Memphis on Feb. 15.
