Tartans Win Again, Defeat No. 11 Bowdoin 6-3

(CLAREMONT, Calif.) - The No. 19 Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team continued its great start to its spring break tour with a 6-3 win over No. 11 Bowdoin College on Monday, March 10 in Claremont, California. The Tartans improve to 8-3 as the Polar Bears move to 1-1.

With doubles play tied at 1-1 after the Tartans No. 3 pair of sophomore Paul Okuda (Kaneohe, Hawaii/Punahou) and freshman Kiril Kirkov (Tampa, Fla./C. Leon King) won 8-5, the No. 1 duo of juniors Will Duncan (Newbury Park, Calif./Newbury Park) and Christian Heaney-Secord (Westwood, Mass./Westwood) finished off Bowdoin's team 9-7 to give the Tartans a one-point lead, 2-1.

ITA National Singles Champion, Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) was the first to finish singles play and won his No. 1 match 6-0, 6-2 while the Tartans won first sets at No. 2, No. 4 and No. 6.

Kirkov won the fourth point of the match for the Tartans with a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 4 singles just before freshman Kunal Wadwani (Saratoga, Calif./Ballarmine College Prep) earned the match-point at No. 6 singles with a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

Freshman Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) made the score 6-1 for the Tartans with his 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 win at No. 5 singles before Heaney-Secord and Duncan lost in tightly contested matches at No. 2 and No. 3 singles, respectively.

The Tartans will have Tuesday off before facing No. 13 University of Redlands at 6:00 p.m. on its home court.