Saldanha Wins 25th Match in Last Two Years at No. 1 in 6-1 Scot Victory

Nilesh Saldanha

In a match previously scheduled for last week, The College of Wooster men’s tennis team visited Delaware, Ohio, on Monday (March 29), and came away with a 6-1 win over Ohio Wesleyan University.

Wooster, now 6-3 on the season, started the North Coast Athletic Conference non-divisional contest by winning the doubles point. Nilesh Saldanha and Nikhil Gonsalves were pushed to a tiebreaker at No. 1 before prevailing 7-5, and Will Morrison and Chris Mickelson were 8-5 winners at the third spot.

The Scots went on to take five of six singles matches, led by Saldanha, who posted a dominating 6-1, 6-0 victory at the top of the lineup to improve to 25-3 over the last two years, including 7-1 this spring.

Ohio Wesleyan’s Andres Levy took a tiebreaker from Alec Garnett in the first set (7-5) only to see Garnett come back and cruise 6-2, 6-1 in the second and third sets, securing the No. 3 singles point for Wooster.

The bottom-half of the order saw the Scots earn three straight-set wins, as Gonsalves won 6-0, 6-2 at No. 4, Brian Ebbitts prevailed 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 at No. 5, and Tim Wyatt was victorious 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) at No. 6.

Wooster is not scheduled to play again until early next week, when it hosts Walsh University (3-5) and Oberlin College (8-1) on back-to-back days (April 5-6).