The Notre Dame men’s tennis team had a valiant effort on the courts as they took on a very talented Princeton team on Friday night. In front of a large and loud crowd of more than 100 Irish fans, the home team battled for more than three hours before the visiting Tigers clinched the win.
In doubles, top duo Sebastian Dominko and Peter Nad took the win 6-3 over the #1 Princeton team but the Irish would fall one court shy of the doubles point. After the first singles court going the way of the team from New Jersey, Peter Nad would tally the first point for Notre Dame with a 6-4, 6-1 win at #5 singles to cut the deficit in half.
Princeton would take the #4 singles court to extend their lead to 3-1 and Notre Dame would need their three veteran players still on court to rally. Junior Sebastian Dominko won a back and forth match at the highest position in the singles lineup as he took down the 19th ranked player in the country 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 in a high level match. This is Dominko’s first top-20 win of this season.
With the match down to courts #2 and #6 who played side by side in the Eck Tennis Pavilion, Yu Zhang and Jamie Corsillo would both need come from behind victories as they each dropped the opening set. Arriving at set points at the exact same moment, both seniors would win deuce points to claim the second set and extend the team match. Unfortunately, early runs in the third by the Tigers gave leads that could not be overcome and both matches would go to the visiting team with a final team score at 5-2 in favor of the Ivy League team but not before 3.5 hours had elapsed.
Results
Notre Dame 2 Princeton 5
Doubles
#78 Dominko/Nad(ND) def. Inschauspe/Bigun(PRIN) 6-3
Nidunjianzan/Shgort(PRIN) def. Magimay/Thompson(ND) 6-3
Ardila/Astreinidis(PRIN) def. Corsillo/Zhang(ND) 6-4
Order of Finish (1, 2, 3)
Singles
#28 Dominko(ND) def. #19 Inchauspe(PRIN) 7-5, 2-6, 6-4
#52 Nidunjianzan(PRIN) def. Zhang(ND) 6-2, 5-7, 6-1
#105 Ardila(PRIN) def. Thompson(ND) 6-3, 6-1
Short(PRIN) def. Magimay(ND) 6-3, 6-2
Nad(ND) def. Bigun(PRIN) 6-4, 6-1
Wen(PRIN) def. Corsillo(ND) 7-6(8), 1-6, 6-4
Order of Finish (3, 5, 4, 1, 2, 6)