ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. --- Senior Day was a success, and UNM's men's tennis team kept up its end-of-season momentum with a 4-2 win over Air Force. The win was UNM's third in the last four matches, and it guaranteed UNM the No. 6 seed in the upcoming Mountain West Tournament, which starts next week.
Before the match, the Lobos honored senior captains Jan SKerbatis and Tyler Waddock, and in doubles, the pair put on quite a race to finish off the doubles point.
That was set up by Alberto Perez and Jakub Prachar, who took a 6-3 win at No. 1 doubles over Jack Brown and Tyler Leaird. The win pushed the Lobo duo to 10-5 at No. 1 doubles this season. That set up the race. Skerbatis, who has missed most of the season with an injury, played at No. 2 doubles with Dario Ciobotaru, up 5-4, while Waddock and Connor Dils were up 5-3 at No. 3 doubles.
Amusingly, both doubles teams got to 40 and a next-point-win scenario. Waddock and Dils couldn't get their serve off to start their point before a one-shot rally ended Skerbatis' match with a win, giving UNM the doubles point and forcing Waddock and Dils to abandon their match just one point short.
In singles, Alberto Perez continued his solid play with a 6-4, 6-4 straight-set win to make it 2-0 UNM. Waddock forced a tiebreaker in his opening set, but down 6-5, he hit wide to lose that opening set to Alec Fritzinger, and Fritzinger pushed through for a 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 win to cut UNM's lead to 2-1.
Prachar won a second-set tiebreaker to give him a 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) win and put UNM a point away, but there was still some drama to be had.
Dils couldn't capitalize on his opening set win, losing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Matthew Staton, and suddenly it was 3-2. The match of the day fittingly was at No. 1 singles, where Dario Ciobotaru ultimately prevailed, but not without a scare or two, or more really.
Ciobotaru and AJ Moore with two tiebreakers twice. In the first set, both players earned breaks and went to a tiebreaker. Facing set point at 6-5, Ciobotaru forced a continuation at 6-6, and then had set points at 7-6, and 8-7 before finally capitalizing on his third at 9-8 for a 10-8 win.
The second set was similarly dramatic. In the first four sets, each player broke, and then after two holds for 3-3, each broke the other again to go to 4-4.
Down 5-4 and 40-30, Ciobotaru saved his second and third set points of the day to tie the set at 5-5. Eventually, the set went to a tiebreaker again. Overall, Ciobotaru had seven set points, and Moore had two. Finally, Ciobotaru won the set, the match, and gave UNM the win with a 14-12 second-set win. Moore, to his credit, saved seven of nine set points, and Ciobotaru saved four overall.
The win guarantees that UNM will play in the late match at the Mountain West Tournament against the No. 3 seed, either San Diego State, UNLV, Boise State, or Grand Canyon, depending on the results of the final day of the regular season. The Lobos face the SDSU Aztecs in San Diego on Sunday. A loss by UNM would mean UNM could not play San Diego State until the semifinals, but a win could set up a rematch.
Regardless, the Lobos will play on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Mountain Time. First, UNM heads to San Diego for the regular season finale against the Aztecs at noon Mountain Time.