Lobos Drop Second Straight Heartbreaker, 4-3 to Denver
DENVER, Colo. — For the second straight day, Lobo men’s tennis has its match come down to the final set in a 3-3 tie. For the second straight game, the Lobos got nipped at the wire. In Denver, Ryoma Mishiro battled back fro a 5-3 deficit in the third set, breaking UNM’s Avery Tallakson in the ninth game when he was serving for the match win, and No. 71 Denver defeated a shorthanded No. 65 UNM squad 4-3. It was UNM’s second straight 4-3 loss after falling at Air Force on Saturday.
Tallakson at the end has been a great success story for UNM, as he entered the day with 10 consecutive wins, but Sunday it was not to be as both he and Daniil Kakhniuk both missed shots at their 20th win of the season. The Lobos won the doubles point with a 6-4 win by Dario Ciobotaru and Georgio Samaha at No. 3 doubles, and UNM took three opening sets to start singles. Both Ciobotaru and Samaha won in singles, with Dario winning 6-1, 6-3 over No. 125 Raffaello Papajcik in his second straight win at No. 2 singles.
Samaha won over Rikuto Yamaguchi 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), but that win made it 3-2 as Denver took three singles matches. No. 41 Daniel Sancho Arbizu won at No. 1 over Aditya Balsekar 6-2, 6-2, Samuel Rovai beat Kakhniuk 7-5, 6-4 and Connor Robb-Wilcox won 6-4, 6-2 at No. 6 over Nicolas Recoura. Everyone for UNM was slid up a spot due to Aram Noroozian’s illness, making him unavailable for a second straight day.
That left the match 3-3 with Tallakson winning the first set 6-3 and Mishiro the second 6-4. Tallakson was up 5-3 and serving, but never got to match point. Mishiro broke serve at 40-15, and then held. Tallakson then held serve and took a 15-30 lead in the 12th game, but he hit long and then Mishiro hit a deep passing shot that Tallakson was able to get to but couldn’t quite get his return over the net, and the match went to a deciding tiebreaker.
Tallakson held a 3-2 as both players held on their serves, but Mishiro after taking a 4-3 lead got two mini-breaks as he scored the final five points for the win.
UNM returns to conference play on Friday with a 1 pm match with San Diego State before hosting UNLV on Sunday at 11 am on Senior Day.