WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – The William & Mary men's tennis team dropped a nailbiter to Ivy League foe Yale, 4-1, on Saturday afternoon at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center. All three doubles matches ended in tiebreakers and a trio of singles contests went three sets, but in the end, the Bulldogs did enough to pull out the victory.
 
How It Happened
- Yale (4-3) opened the match by taking a highly-competitive doubles point where all three matches finished in tiebreakers. At No. 2, senior Tristan Bautil and freshman Oren Vasser downed the Bulldogs pair of Ryan Cheng and Cody Lin, who entered the match at 5-1 in dual-match play. Bautil and Ruo evened their record at 2-2 on the year.
- The Bulldogs clinched the doubles point with a win at the top spot. Dylan King and Michael Sun edged junior Brenden Volk and sophomore Chen Ruo, 7-6 (4), to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
- Vasser quickly evened the match with a straight-sets win at the No. 4 spot. The Tribe rookie topped Arnav Dhengra, 6-3, 6-2, for his second win in the last three matches. Vasser posted his ninth singles win of the year.
- The remainder of matches were nailbiters, including a trio of tilts going to three sets. Lin downed Ruo in narrow fashion, 7-5, 6-4, at No. 5, before King posted a pair of tiebreaker-set wins to down sophomore Sebastian Quiros on line two to give the visitors a 3-1 lead.
- Andrew Heller rallied from a set deficit to clinch Yale's victory with a win at No. 6. Senior Michael Ruamthong took the opening set from Heller, 6-0, before the Bulldogs junior took the second set, 6-4, and cemented the match with a 6-2 triumph in the third.
- Volk jumped out to a set advantage at the top singles position with a 6-4 triumph over Sun. The Yale freshman rallied to take the second, 6-4, and led 4-1 in the third when the match was abandoned with the team result deficit.
- At the No. 3 post, sophomore Finbar Talcott won the second set, 7-5, after dropping the first to Cheng, 6-3. The match was tied at four in the third when it was stopped.
 
Up Next
The Tribe hosts No. 23-ranked Penn on Sunday, Feb. 24. The match carries at 10 a.m. start time from the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center. Live video will be available for the contest via PlaySight at TribeAthletics.com/TennisLive, and the live stat link can be found on the men's tennis schedule page.
 
Yale 4, William & Mary 1
Singles
No. 1 – Brenden Volk (W&M) vs. Michael Sun (Yale) – DNF, 6-4, 4-6, 1-4
No. 2 – Dylan King (Yale) def. Sebastian Quiros (W&M) – 7-6, 7-6
No. 3 – Ryan Cheng (Yale) vs. Finbar Talcott (W&M) – DNF, 6-3, 5-7, 4-4
No. 4 – Oren Vasser (W&M) def. Arnav Dhengra (Yale) – 6-3, 6-2
No. 5 – Cody Lin (Yale) def. Chen Ruo (W&M) – 7-5, 6-4
No. 6 – Andrew Heller (Yale) def. Michael Ruamthong (W&M) – 0-6, 6-4, 6-2
Finishing Order: 4, 5, 2, 6*
 
Doubles
No. 1 – King/Sun (Yale) def. Chen/Volk (W&M) – 7-6
No. 2 – Bautil/Vasser (W&M) def. Cheng/Ling (Yale) – 7-6
No. 3 – Brown/Dhingra (Yale) def. Talcott/Quiros (W&M) – 7-6
Finishing Order: 3, 2, 1*