The TCNJ men’s tennis team secured a narrow 4-3 victory over No. 50 Ithaca College on Apr. 4, coming back from a deficit during the dual match held in Ithaca, New York.
The result marks the fifth consecutive win for the Lions, who improved their season record to 10-4. The match was decided by Nathan Chan, who played a pivotal role as the only double winner for TCNJ.
Doubles play began with Harrison Maitland-Carter and Asa Wong winning their top-court match against Sam Lopez-Cardenas and Gijs Fidler with a score of 6-3. Chan and Alberto Thomas then clinched the doubles point for TCNJ by defeating Ean Lantzy and Luis Crespo in a tiebreaker at No. 2 doubles, finishing 7-6 (4).
In singles competition, TCNJ lost matches on courts one, two, and six as Ithaca took an early lead. However, Faris Shehata earned a straight-set win over Siddharth Vaada at number four singles (6-3, 7-5), while Aidan Twamley leveled the overall score by beating Carlos Hernandez at number five singles (7-6 [4], 6-2). The deciding point came from Chan’s three-set comeback victory over Crespo at number three singles; after dropping the first set, Chan rallied to win the next two sets (5-7, 6-4, 6-2), including running off five straight games to close out the final set.
With this result, TCNJ remains undefeated against Ithaca all-time with an improved record of 11 wins and no losses between the programs. Maitland-Carter reached his milestone of seventy career doubles wins—moving past longtime assistant coach Mike Klimchak ’07 into second place in program history—and also climbed to sixth all-time with his one hundred twenty-fifth career win overall. Thomas is now tied for seventh place with sixty-two career doubles victories and moved into a tie for thirteenth all-time with one hundred nine total wins.
The Lions are scheduled to play next Saturday against Washington College.
