Box Score ORLANDO, Fla. – For the first time since 2018, the University of Dayton men's tennis team will advance to the Atlantic 10 Championship Match after taking down Saint Joseph's 4-0 on Saturday morning at USTA National Campus in Orlando.
The Flyers improve to 16-7 with the win in their sixth straight semifinals appearance. Saint Joseph's ends their season at 14-4. Dayton entered as the three-seed, knocking off the second-seeded Hawks to reach Sunday's championship match.
Dayton opened the morning by taking the doubles point against the Hawks. Senior
Joe DeMarco and sophomore
Ronit Hiryur started the match with a win at No. 3 doubles, beating Nassim Fenjiro and Alex MacNeil 6-2.
For the second straight match the combination of senior
Steven Karl and junior
Matt DeMarco clinched the point and a 1-0 lead for UD, this time defeating Alp Sentay and Justus Agbo 6-4 on Court Two.
The Flyers continued to show the depth of the team during singles play, winning each of the bottom three flights to get the team to the four points. Freshman
Eric Perkowski won his team-leading 17
th match of the season in No. 5 singles to put Dayton up 2-0. Perkowski won his second straight-set match of the tournament, this time a 6-2, 6-1 win over Eshan Kanetkar.
Matt DeMarco extended the lead to 3-0 after clinching yesterday's match. The junior defeated Justus Agbo 6-3, 6-3 in the fourth singles flight to put the Flyers one point away from the title match.
Karl won the 68
th match of his career to punch Dayton's ticket to the finals, passing Jonathan Khoury and putting him in sole possession of seventh place in program history. After winning the first set against Nassim Fenjiro 6-1, the senior took the match at No. 6 singles with a 6-4 win in the second set to put the Flyers into a contest with VCU.
That match will start at 10 a.m. at USTA National Campus in Orlando and will have both live stats and live court feeds.
