The Virginia Wesleyan men's tennis team traveled to Misenheimer, North Carolina to face Division III opponent, Pfieffer University, in dual match play. The match today came down to a two and a half hour nail-biter at #5, won by
Carlos Rullan Zarraga, to give the Marlins the 4-3 win.
Despite a 6-3 loss at the top spot in doubles, the duos of Rafael and
Carlos Rullan Zarraga at #2 and
Alen Curovic and
Tudor Vlad at #3 won 6-2 and 6-4 respectively to give the Marlins the doubles point.
Rafael Rullan Zarraga was first to finish in singles at the second line, dropping only two games to opponent, Jayden Wellman.
Tudor Vlad was next to finish at #1, also winning in straight sets, to put the Marlins ahead 3-0.
Sebastien Muller,
Francis Cabaddu, and
Sainandan Challagundla at lines #3, #4, and #6 each won their first set 6-4, but were unable to close out. Pfieffer managed to level the match score at 3-3 by winning these matches in three sets.
The clincher came down to
Carlos Rullan Zarraga who fought back from a set down against Andres Valdez-Arze at the fifth singles spot. He won the second set tiebreaker without dropping a point and carried his momentum into the third set, where he won by a score of 6-3.
The Marlins will travel to Fredericksburg this weekend to face Haverford College on Saturday and the University of Mary Washington on Sunday.
