Temple University men’s tennis (2-0, 0-0 The American Athletic Conference) swept Fairleigh Dickinson (1-2, 1-0 Northeast Conference) 7-0 on Thursday at the TU Pavilion and beat George Mason University (1-2, 0-1 Atlantic 10) 6-1 in Fairfax, Virginia, on Friday afternoon.
Temple lost just three of its 18 matches against FDU and George Mason. In the home opener against FDU, Temple’s doubles pairing of freshman Léo Raquin and junior Thibault Frumholz took down Knights seniors Moric Budinszky and Andris Gudins 6-2.
Temple graduate student Juan Araoz and sophomore Marin Delmas defeated senior Youssef Sader and sophomore Taiga Koyama 6-4.
Knights junior Mehdi Dhouib and freshman Younes Adnane beat graduate student Eric Biscoveanu and junior Louis Gorregues 6-4 to close out the doubles matches. This was the Knights’ only victory of the day.
“I think everyone was a little nervous in their first game,” said head coach Steve Mauro. “Well, I think we haven’t played a match in close to a year, so it’s been a while, and the guys were a bit tentative.”
The Owls won every singles match, with Frumholz and Araoz battling back from slow starts to win their respective matches.
“Not only was it their first match, but we have been practicing a lot inside,” Mauro said. “We just started practicing outside so there is an adjustment going inside to outside.”
On Friday against George Mason, Patriots sophomore Rithik Sardana and senior Ryan Charles edged out Raquin and Frumholz 7-6.
Araoz and Delmas defeated Patriots graduate student Luke Maxwell and sophomore Herman Jentoft 6-2.
Biscoveanu and Gorregues beat the Patriots’ junior pairing of Rishab Sardana and Erick Rivas 6-3 to close out the doubles portion.
“In doubles, I think we could’ve finished a few more volleys,” Mauro said. “I think we need to finish more points in doubles, but other than that I think they played pretty solidly.”
Temple continued its singles success by winning all but one match against George Mason. Mauro was impressed with how Delmas and Gorregues played, he said.
“They were just very consistent,” Mauro added. “They were very precise and very consistent. I thought they did a really good job.”
The matches marked the start of four consecutive days with at least one game for the Owls. Temple’s schedule is condensed after a delayed start to the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Temple will visit Norfolk to battle Norfolk State (1-1, 0-0 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) March 13 at noon and take on Old Dominion (7-7,1-0 Conference USA) March 14 at 11 a.m.
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