BALTIMORE – Matching up against No. 23 Johns Hopkins in a battle for first place in the Centennial Conference standings, the Haverford College men's tennis match suffered its first conference defeat by a 7-2 score. Nevertheless, just after seeing their seven-match winning streak come to a close against a nationally-ranked opponent, the Fords bounced back with a 6-3 win at Stevenson in non-conference action.
Josh Moskovitz's victory against Vishnu Joshi headlined Haverford's success in the match against Johns Hopkins. Defeating Joshi for the second straight season, Moskovitz came out victorious against the No. 2 player in the Atlantic South Region with a 6-4, 6-3 win. Moskovitz, who came into the match as the No. 13 player in the regional singles rankings, is now 16-6 overall this season, including a 5-1 record in Centennial Conference action. The senior captain has now won six straight singles matches overall.
Haverford's first point against Johns Hopkins came at No. 2 doubles where the pairing of Pranav Krishnan and George Jiang came away with an 8-6 win. The Krishnan/Jiang pairing is now a team-best 13-6 when playing together in doubles. That record includes a 4-1 mark in Centennial Conference action. Haverford nearly flipped the doubles advantage in its favor at No. 1. Josh Moskovitz and Kevin Yan forced a tiebreak, but fell 7-4 in those extra points for their first conference setback in doubles this year. The Fords' other chances to claim sets in singles came at No. 3 and No. 5 as both George Jiang and Nick Sweeney forced an extra game in their sets before taking hard-fought 7-5 defeats.
Bouncing right back after making the trip to Stevenson, the Fords swept through doubles and won three of the six singles matches as they handed the Mustangs (13-2) just their second defeat of the season. Switching up the pairings from the usual lineup, Haverford still came out ready to play and conceded just six total games in singles. Josh Moskovitz and George Jiang played No. 1 doubles and won by an 8-1 score. Arnav Patodia and Pranav Krishnan were 8-2 winners at No. 2, while Jackson Trevor and Patrick Kley were 8-3 winners in the third flight.
Kevin Yan moved up to No. 1 singles in the match against Stevenson and quickly got rid of any frustration from his first conference setback of the season with a 6-1, 6-4 victory. Jiang was equally impressive was a 6-0, 6-4 win as he was up to No. 2 in the lineup. Haverford's third win against Stevenson came from Scott Kozarsky at No. 4 singles. He allowed the fewest games of any singles match to his opponent, winning 6-1, 6-2. Kozarsky is now 2-0 this spring in singles and holds a 3-0 mark for his career in the varsity singles lineup.
Men's tennis will now reset as the Fords head into the final week of the regular season. On Tuesday, another big match awaits as Haverford battles rival Swarthmore on the road in a 4 p.m. start. Second place in the conference is likely in play when the Fords and Garnet meet. Haverford closes the regular season at home next Saturday against Gettysburg (11 a.m.) and Scranton (3 p.m.).