The UMass Boston men’s tennis team lost its first home game on Saturday, April 3 against UMass Dartmouth, making the Beacon’s record 0-2. Dartmouth won five singles matches out of six and two of three doubles matches.

Despite the team’s loss, UMass Boston’s Quazi Sadruzzaman took a win in a singles against Todd Cabral (6-0, 6-2). Also, Sadruzzaman and Dat Nguyen won a doubles against Cabral and Dan Cohen (8-5), a doubles champion of the Little East Conference Championships last year.

Explaining their poor start, Sadruzzaman explained, “We were down 0-3 because we didn’t communicate well.”

However, after losing three straight games, they held a short conversation on court. Then the situation changed dramatically when they concluded the match with a come-from-behind win.

Having realized both Sadruzzaman and Nguyen stayed near the baseline, the Dartmouth pair used some drop shots, which often were trapped by the net or were so long that they became very easy for the Boston pair to score on. Sadruzzaman observed it was Dartmouth’s mistake.

“I think they were frustrated. They had to use drop shots, low-percentage shots.”

UMass Boston lost their other matches; #2 singles Cohen defeated Nguyen (6-1, 6-4), #3 singles Brendon Bowers defeated Yassir Bouaboallaoui (6-2, 6-4), #4 singles Aidan Thompson defeated Jay Lee (6-2, 6-2), #5 singles Ryan Paul defeated Trung Phan (6-0, 6-0), and #2 doubles Bowers and Thompson defeated Bouaboallaoui and Lee (8-3).

UMass Boston was forced to give up the sixth singles match and the third doubles match because of a lack of a sixth player. It automatically made the team 0-2 out of nine; therefore, it had to win five matches out of seven to win the game.

When asked if there was any message to potential players, Sadruzzaman answered, “College is the last chance to play as a team with team spirit.”

Coach Briggs spoke about the merit of playing tennis, “Tennis is a lifetime sport, very open to any kind of age, body size, and ability.”

If you are interested, feel free to contact coach Briggs by phone at 617-287-7846, by e-mail at [email protected], or come to watch their home games.

UMass Boston is scheduled to play 12 games this season, six of them at Clark Athletic Center. Their next home game is against Eastern Nazarene College at 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 8.