Buffalo Bulls Men's Tennis gets first-ever win over Yale, to face Monmouth tonight

It's only a one match swing from last year's showing against the Bulldogs, but Amar Hromic' come-from-behind 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 win at first singles was the rubber point in an historic 4-3 win for the Bulls, their first ever against Yale.

After losing to all six Ivy League opponents they faced in 2015, UB is now 2-2 against the Ancient Eight with wins over Yale and Brown balancing a narrow and less narrow loss to nationally-ranked Cornell and Dartmouth.

The match played out so quickly that Hromic and the Bulldogs' #1, Ziqi Wang, played their entire third set with the score already 3-3. The difference came midway through the set, when Amar broke Wang's serve to go up 4-3 and held the rest of the way for a 6-4 final set. Wang is one of the top players in the Northeast and came into this weekend ranked #118 in the country.

All five other singles matches took only two sets, with Pablo Alvarez at #2 and Sergio Arevalillo at #4 dispatching their opponents with ease. Thanks to the doubles point - built on 6-3 and 6-4 wins at first and third doubles - the Bulls only needed split the singles matches to take the win.

UB's dual against Monmouth will take place over the course of the next two days, with the singles matches taking place tonight at 6:00 PM and the doubles tomorrow morning.

Doubles

Alvarez/Hromic (UB) def Andrienko/Doehler (Yale); 6-3
Svenning/Z. Wang (Yale) vs. Hajdu-Andersson/Mehta (UB); 5-5 (susp.)
Arevalillo/Nittolo (UB) def. Hagermoser/J. Brown (Yale); 6-4

Singles:

Hromic (UB) def. Z. Wang (Yale); 5-7, 6-1, 6-4
Alvarez (UB) def. Hagermoser (Yale); 6-3, 6-2
Svenning (Yale) def. Nittolo (UB); 6-2, 6-4
Arevalillo (UB) def. Brown (Yale); 6-2, 6-4
D. Wang (Yale) def. Mehta (UB); 6-4, 6-3
Andrienko (Yale) def. Culicovschi (UB); 6-4, 6-1

***
UPDATE

The Bulls raced out to a 2-0 lead against Monmouth this evening thanks to straight-set wins from Hromic and Alvarez at 1 and #2 singles. Noah Hajdu-Andersson lost in straight sets himself, and as Monmouth looked to have a bit of momentum, but UB freshman Ethan Nittolo got a timely break to dig out of a second-set hole and closed out his win, 6-3, 7-5. Akhil Mehta then pulled away from his guy for another straight-set win and the Bulls clinched the dual 4-1, suspending the remaining match, where Sergio Arevalillo had been forced to a third set.

The doubles portion of this dual was to be contested tomorrow morning, but it's unclear right now if the teams will bother, or if they'll just move on to their remaining duals of the weekend. UB is set to take on Boston College, who fell to the Bulls 7-0 last year.