No. 11 Tartans Just Miss Win Against No. 5 Johns Hopkins

(FREDERICKSBURG, Va.) - The 11th-ranked Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team traveled to the University of Mary Washington for two dual matches and faced fifth-ranked Johns Hopkins University on Saturday, March 22. In a hard fought battle, the Tartans dropped a 6-3 decision to the Blue Jays.  Carnegie Mellon is now 11-5 in dual play while Johns Hopkins moves to 5-2.

The Tartans earned the first point of the match at No. 1 doubles when juniors Christian Heaney-Secord (Westwood, Mass./Westwood) and Will Duncan (Newbury Park, Calif./Newbury Park) won 8-1. Hopkins then took the points at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles by 8-4 and 8-6 scores.

Hopkins went on to take a 4-1 lead with wins at No. 1 singles and No. 3 singles. The Tartans earned another point when Heaney-Secord won his No. 2 singles match 6-3, 6-2.

With the match still up for grabs, the Tartans forced a third set at both No. 4 and No. 5 singles when freshman Kiril Kirkov (Tampa, Fla./C. Leon King) won his second set 6-3 and freshman Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) won his second set by the same 6-3 score.

As matches four and five started their third sets, Hopkins picked up the match point at No. 6 singles with a 6-2, 7-5 win. Freshman Kunal Wadwani (Saratoga, Calif./Ballarmine College Prep) nearly forced a third set as he had it tied 5-5 in the second but was unable to finish off the set.

Zheng recorded the Tartans third point as he won his third set 6-2.  Kirkov battled in his third set forcing a tiebreaker before dropping the third set 7-6 (1).

The Tartans will face No. 17 University of Mary Washington on Sunday, March 23 at at 10:00 a.m.