Feeding off its excellent performance two weeks ago at the Blue/Gray Invitational, the men's tennis team extended its spring record to 11-2 Friday with a convincing win over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. The Bears dominated the match from the start, winning by a final score of 7-0.
"Coming off of last weekend, this was a match we knew we should win," said co-captain Jamie Cerretani '04.
The Bears, who moved up to 43rd in the national rankings, controlled the entire match, never giving the Retrievers of UMBC a chance to assert themselves.
Brown shuffled its normal doubles lineup for the match, giving different players a chance to get on the court. Cerretani and Adil Shamasdin '05 usually play together, forming the seventh-ranked doubles team in the nation. But for this match, Cerretani partnered with co-captain Ben Brier '04 and Shamasdin teamed with Nick Goldberg '05. Eric Thomas '07 and Zach Pasanen '06 comprised Brown's third doubles team.
Goldberg and Shamasdin took some time to get up to speed in their match against James Tyler and Michael Keller. Brown fell into an early 1-3 hole, but Goldberg and Shamasdin held serve from there to make the score 4-5. The Bears then went on a 4-0 run, breaking UMBC's serve twice en route to an 8-5 victory.
Cerretani and Brier had little trouble in quickly defeating their UMBC opponents 8-1, while Thomas and Pasanen blanked their opponents 8-0 to sweep the doubles point for Brown. Cerretani and Brier are ranked 50th nationally in doubles, making Cerretani one of the only players in the nation to be ranked on two doubles teams.
"As a team, we came out and played well today. The guys really support each other so much," said Head Coach Jay Harris.
In singles, any hopes the Retrievers had for a comeback were quickly dashed. Goldberg dominated his opponent, Luis Baraldi, in their singles match, winning 6-0, 6-1 in less than an hour to put Brown up 2-0.
"I wanted to start off strong for the team," Goldberg said after his match.
The Bears kept the momentum rolling, winning every singles match in straight sets. Brier jumped to an early lead on Keller, capitalizing on his service points and scoring two breaks to win the first set 6-1 and the second 6-2. Shamasdin clinched the win for Brown, fighting out a win in his first set 6-4 before controlling the second set 6-3 to earn the win over Mikhail Kouznetsov.
Having clinched the win, the Bears could have relaxed and coasted through the rest of the match. Instead, the Bears kept their concentration and notched some big wins in the process.
Cerretani improved his singles record to 18-8 with a dominating win over Tyler at number-one singles 6-0, 6-1. The match was extended with by several long rallies, which Cerretani was able to win on the way to his victory.
Thomas continued his excellent freshman season, defeating Djan Gusmao 6-2, 6-0. Thomas is now 15-7 in singles play this year. Pasanen closed out the match by defeating Albert Hardja 6-4, 6-0. Down 3-4 in the first set, Pasanen rallied behind his teammate's support and won the next nine games for the victory.
Brown returns to the court to take on 56th-ranked Virginia Tech on March 27 at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
