DAYTON – The University of Dayton men's tennis team will play a pair of conference opponents in Pittsburgh over the weekend. The Flyers will start off with St. Bonaventure in the team's first A-10 match of the season on Saturday at 3 p.m. before returning for a true road match against Duquesne on Sunday at 1 p.m. Both matches will take place at Alpha Tennis & Fitness of Pittsburgh.
The Flyers enter the weekend at 10-6 after falling at Belmont over the weekend. Senior
Will Harper won his eighth match of the season to score the lone point for Dayton. Harper defeated Jack Randall of the Bruins at No. 4 singles 7-5, 6-3.
Harper and fellow senior
Steven Karl are one win away from becoming the winningest class in program history. The pair of Flyers are currently tied with Jordan Benjamin and Lorenzo Rollhauser with 65 team wins. Karl is also two singles wins away from 64 career wins, which would tie Benjamin and Brad Nykiel for eighth in the history of the program.
This season, junior
Connor Bruce and sophomore
Ronit Hiryur are tied for the team lead with 14 singles wins. Bruce is also one win away from setting a career high for wins in a season.
St. Bonaventure enters the weekend at 5-6, but will play Duquesne on Friday before the match with the Flyers. The Bonnies last played on March 12, beating Grove City and Daeman in a doubleheader. Stijn Paardekooper has been the main play at the top singles flight, going 5-5 in 10 matches at No. 1 singles. Paardekooper's 11 wins are the most on the Bonnies. He has also paired with Marco Rivolo for 10 wins in doubles play, which is the most of any pair.
Duquesne also enters the weekend at 5-6 after beating Ashland on March 16. The Dukes will take on the Bonnies on Friday and then cap the weekend off with Sunday's match with UD. Kaipo Marshall has played 10 matches at No. 1 singles, going 6-4 in the top singles flight. He is tied for second on the team, with Tamirlan Teberikov leading Duquesne with seven wins between No. 3, 4, and 5 singles. Teberikov is also tied with Jin Dassanayake for the team lead in doubles wins with six.
The Flyers are 3-3 against St. Bonaventure since 2005, but have won the last three matches against the Bonnies. The last match resulted in a 5-0 win for the Flyers on March 18, 2017, at UD. The Flyers got singles victories from Benjamin, Rollhauser, Zach Berry, and Simon Jayaram in the win.
Dayton has won eight straight matches against the Dukes and are 12-10 dating back to 2003. The Flyers shut out Duquesne last season on March 26, 2021 with Bruce, Harper, and junior
Matt DeMarco each picking up singles victories in the win.
