HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – The Carleton College men's tennis team prevailed 4-3 over Augustana College (Ill.) in a back-and-forth match at Chaplin Park. It was the Knights' (11-2) fourth consecutive victory.
After Carleton's top doubles tandem—the No. 16-ranked duo of
Akshay Garapati and
Jack Rivkin—won 6-2 atop the lineup, the Vikings (4-3) earned a 6-2 win at the third slot. That left the doubles point to be determined by the outcome at No. 2 doubles, with Augustana's Santiago Diaz and Saman Rezaeyan edging
Baiyun Jing and
Zach Leslie by a tight 7-6 (7-5) tally.
Rivkin leveled the match with a 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 5 singles, and
Owen Heidtke followed with a 6-4, 6-2 victory at the sixth slot. Jing captured a third team point for Carleton with his 6-3, 6-4 triumph at the second spot in the lineup.
The final three matches all required super tiebreakers, with Augustana making things interesting by claiming a 6-3, 3-6, 1-0 (12-10) win at the third spot and 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 (10-8) victory at the fourth slot.
That left the team result to be determined by the outcome at No. 1 singles battle between Garapati and Diaz.
The No. 34-ranked Garapati dropped the first set 6-0, bounced back with a 7-5 win in the second set, and took the super tiebreaker 10-5 to give Carleton the team win.
"How can I summarize Akshay's match?" asked Carleton head coach
Stephan Zweifel. "The first set was 'Highway to Hell', while the second and third sets were 'Stairway to Heaven'."
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton faces University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at 9:30 a.m. EDT / 8:30 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, March 24.
