The UNLV men’s tennis team bounced back from a pair of 4-1 losses on the road this week to beat the UC San Diego Tritons 4-1 and 6-1 in a Saturday doubleheader .
The two wins boost the Rebels record to 10-9 overall this season.
In the first series Saturday morning, UNLV came out of the gates slow, losing during doubles competition to go 1-0 down in the overall score. The doubles competition ended once UCSD won two of the three games.
On court two, UCSD’s Daniel Traxler and William Lan defeated UNLV’s Jackson Atherton and Jordan Sauer 6-3.
The Rebels also lost 6-3 on court three when Thomas Navarro and Jack Hambrook were beaten by Phillip Lan and Pelayo Rodriguez.
Phillip Lan and Rodriguez are UCSD’s best doubles team with an overall record of 9-1 this season.
UNLV’s doubles team of Milos Dabic and Zac Brodney were winning 5-4 in their game against UCSD’s second best doubles team of Zach Ermert and Eric Silberman (8-2), but the game went unfinished following the Tritons two doubles wins.
Going into the singles competition, UNLV had to win at least 4-of-6 games to win the series. The Rebels did just that, winning four games quickly to take a 4-1 win.
Nationally ranked in the top 100, Christopher Bulus defeated Traxler easily 6-2 twice.
The win moves Bulus to a 16-5 overall record and plunges Traxler down to 3-12.
Coming in at 3-11, Traxler entered as a massive underdog and Bulus made sure of that. Bulus forced Traxler to chase several powerfully accurate shots, while also forcing Traxler into repeatedly committing unforced errors.
UNLV also got stellar performances from Sauer, Brodney, and Zach Garner to secure the 4-1 victory.
Sauer won against Phillip Lan 6-2, 6-4, Brodney defeated Ermert 6-2, 6-4, and Garner finished off the first series by winning 6-3, 6-4 against Jett Cole.
Following the first series, UNLV head coach Owen Hambrook stressed the importance of getting healthy and ready for conference play, a few team injuries leading up to their conference schedule.
“The whole aim is to have a good non-conference schedule and play the best, that’s what we want to be,” Hambrook said. “We are slowly but surely getting healthy, and we should be good to go.”
In the second series in the afternoon, UNLV won in even more dominant fashion, winning 6-1. The Rebels won all three doubles matches and won 5-of-6 singles matches.
UCSD’s only win came with Sanjith Devineni improving to 3-1 overall this season by defeating Rebel Tom Ciszewski 6-3, 6-2.
Highlights for UNLV in the second series singles included Sauer picking up another victory, this time over Rodriguez 7-6 (7-1), 6-3. Atherton also destroyed UCSD’s Joseph Teh 6-0, 6-0.
In the doubles, Dabic and Brodney continued their solid form for UNLV by easing past UCSD’s Cole and Tristan Taylor 6-2.
The Rebels best team of Bulus and Garner improved to 8-2 overall this season by defeating Devineni and Teh 7-6 (7-4).
The losses for UCSD ended their two-game win streak and dropped them down to 5-13 for the season.
Up Next
The Rebels will host a match against UC Riverside on Mar. 29 to close out their non-conference season.
The Rebels will then begin conference play away against Utah State on April 1 and away to Boise State on April 3.
