Dmitry Kozionov picked up a win in singles against UTA, improving his record to 14-5
Match Results
THIBODAUX – Hoping for its first conference victory of the year in its season finale, the Nicholls State University men's tennis team put together a strong performance but came up short as the Colonels fell 4-3 against the University of Texas-Arlington on Friday at the Colonel Tennis Complex.
With the Southland Conference Tournament's new format this season of taking only the top four teams, Nicholls (9-10, 0-5 SLC) will be left out of the postseason after making back-to-back appearances in 2009 and 2010.
UTA (11-8, 2-2 SLC) took the first two matches in doubles to claim the point; however,
Roy Knight, who returned after missing the last four matches due to injury, and
Dmitry Kozionov teamed up for the Colonels to take the No. 1 match 9-7.
Nicholls carried that momentum into singles play as the Colonels were victorious in three of the first four matches. In the No. 1 pairing, Damjan Despotovski outlasted UTA's Mindaugas Celedinas by the score of 7-5, 7-6, but
Razvan Cojocaru dropped the No. 6 match 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).
Dmitry Kozionov won the No. 3 match 6-4, 6-4 while
Palash Tiwari picked up a convincing 6-2, 6-1 victory in the No. 5 slot.
With the Colonels leading 3-2 and only two matches remaining, UTA would take the final two points to claim the victory. In the No. 2 match,
Shayann Vaezzadeh bounced back from a 7-6 (7-4) setback in the first frame to even up the match with a second set 6-4 victory; but would fall in the decisive set 6-3. For the No. 4 match,
Matshidiso Malope also picked up a second-set victory to even the score, but dropped the final set 6-4.
Although playing without a healthy lineup for most of the season, head coach
Meenakshi Sundaram's squad was able to notch nine victories in his first season at the helm. Four Colonels picked up double digit wins in singles, led by Kozionov with an impressive 14-5 record. Tiwari was 12-6, Vaezzadeh finished at 12-7 and Despotovski put together an 11-8 record with 10 victories coming at the No. 1 position. Vaezzadeh and Malope were the top doubles team at 10-7.
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