Tech Tennis begins season on the road

HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech men's and women's tennis teams began the 2024 portion of their schedule this weekend. Both teams fell 6-1 at Tiffin on Friday. The men's team played at Findlay on Saturday, dropping the match 5-2. The Oilers defeated the women's squad 7-0 on Sunday in Midland.

"The first match of the season is always tough with some nerves, but Tiffin is definitely a deeper team this year and came out firing," Tech coach Kristin D'Agostini-Yep said.

On the men's side, Nikolai Prosjanykov earned the lone singles victory for the Huskies in the No. 4 spot. He bested Matt Weaver 6-4, 6-4. In doubles, Leon Sell and Landon Coates teamed up for a 6-4 victory in the No. 1 spot over Matt Telford and Michael Gurtner.

Emily Cojocaru earned a singles victory in the fourth position, taking down Jessica Peace 6-3 and 6-3.

Saturday the Huskies earned points in singles in the No. 4 and 5 positions over the Oilers. Nikolai Prosjanykov earned his second win of the weekend, defeating Dallas Ramsey 7-6 (7-5), 6-5. Landon Coates took down Maxwell Hosey 7-5, 6-7 (4-7), 1-0 (10-4). Vitor Jordao and Nikolai Prosjanykov earned a doubles win over Maxwell Hosey and Ethan Shoesmith 6-4 in the third position.

"This one was a tough one for us, losing three three-set matches," added D'Agostini-Yep. "It really could have gone either way, but our team fought really hard."

Leon Sell won the first set while Adam Fenjiro and Ian Pinnoo won the second set in their singles matches but fell in three in the end.

Findlay defeated Tech 7-0 Sunday at the Midland Tennis Center. Emily Cojocaru and Emily Rose both forced third sets in their singles matches.

"Findlay just came out and played better than us today," D'Agostini-Yep said. "We didn't recover well from Friday's match, and we'll just need to get back to the drawing board and get ready to go back out there next Friday."

Tech is back on the road next weekend with both teams playing at Northwood on Friday and Hillsdale on Saturday.