BALTIMORE, Md. - The Haverford College men's tennis team (5-7, 2-3 CC) was defeated by No. 8 Johns Hopkins (12-3, 4-1 CC) in a Centennial Conference matchup at the Johns Hopkins Tennis Courts on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately for the Fords, the Blue Jays proved to be too much to handle, as they won the match 8-1.
In the doubles portion of the match, Haverford struggled to keep up with Johns Hopkins. The Yu brothers, James and Thomas, quickly dispatched Haverford's Stefan Johnson and James McKenzie in the first flight doubles match, winning 8-1. The third flight doubles match, featuring Daniel Ardila and Allen Gong of Johns Hopkins against Aiden Kim and Abhinav Nallapareddy, also ended in an 8-2 victory for the Blue Jays. Joe DeMarco and George Jiang of Johns Hopkins secured the third doubles point for their team with an 8-3 win over Haverford's Adam Chow and Justin Minerva in the second flight doubles match.
Moving on to the singles portion of the match, Haverford struggled to find a foothold against Johns Hopkins. The singles matches began with Marco Azar defeating James McKenzie in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2. The loss put the Fords in a tough position early in singles play. Haverford's Justin Minerva was able to bring the Fords back with a win in the number five singles match against former teammate George Jiang of Johns Hopkins. Minerva won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, providing a bright spot for the Fords against a familiar foe.
The Blue Jays bounced back in the number three singles match, with James Yu defeating Aiden Kim, 7-5, 6-0 to clinch things for the Blue Jays. In the number one singles match, Thomas Yu defeated Stefan Johnson in a tight first set tiebreaker, 7-6 (7-3), before taking the second set, 6-3.
The number two singles match was a closely contested battle, with Mason Liu ultimately coming out on top against Andreas Wingert. Liu won the first set, 6-3, before Wingert fought back to force a second set tiebreaker. Liu ultimately won the tiebreaker, 7-4, to take the match.
The final singles match featured Andrew Tran against Adam Chow. After dropping the first set, Chow battled back to take the lead in the second set. However, Tran was able to win the second set and carried his momentum into the third, ultimately winning the match, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Although the Fords fought hard, they were unable to overcome the strong Johns Hopkins team on their home court to replicate last season's historic upset of the Blue Jays in Haverford.
The loss dropped Haverford's record to 5-7 overall and 2-3 in conference play, while Johns Hopkins improved to 12-3 overall and 4-1 in conference play.
Haverford now takes a brief excursion from Centennial Conference play, hosting No. 40 Christopher Newport on Friday at 4 p.m.