Box Score LEXINGTON, VA – Tenth-ranked Denison held off a rally by the Johns Hopkins men's tennis team as the Big Red beat the Blue Jays, 5-4, Sunday afternoon. Hopkins suffers its first loss of the season as the Jays fall to 4-1 overall while Denison improves to 4-2.
 
The Big Red jumped out to a 3-0 lead as they swept the doubles matches. Andy Mackler and Jacob Patterson earned the first point of the match with an 8-1 win at number three over sophomore Allen Gong and freshman Joshua Kim. Kael Shah and Zach Portnoy then won 8-2 at two over graduate student George Jiang and sophomore Pranav Gadiraju. Ethan Green and Colin Gramley completed the sweep with a tight 8-7 (3) win over senior Daniel Ardila and junior Marco Azar at one.
 
Ardila got the Blue Jays on the board when he beat Shah 6-4, 6-4 at number two singles. Patterson answered with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Gong at one to put Denison up 4-1. Mackler then clinched the win when he beat graduate student Hanyu Liu 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 at four. Freshman Chakor Rajendra made it a 5-2 match when he beat Green 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-2 at three. Azar followed with a 7-6 (4), 3-6, 1-0 (10) win over Portnoy at six.  Kim then closed out the match with a come-from-behind 6-7 (3), 6-4, 1-0 (4) win at five over Ryan Patrick.
 
Hopkins returns to action on Thursday, March 21 against Tufts in Claremont, CA.