by Andre van der Merwe
Daily Lobo
The UNM men's tennis team used its strong doubles play to carry itself to victory against the University of San Francisco.
No. 65 UNM rolled to a 5-1 victory at the UNM Tennis Center against unranked USF on Sunday. The Lobos excelled in all three doubles matches winning 3-0 to pick up the doubles team point.
The No. 1 tandem for the Lobos, sophomores Max Jones and Kamil Pajkowski, has not lost all year. Jones and Pajkowski registered their seventh consecutive win after defeating USF's Matthew Berry and Korbiniav Kramer. Counting their fall season doubles matches, Jones and Pajkowski are still undefeated.
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Pajkowski said they've had some close calls, but have stepped up their performance as of late.
"We're consistently performing now," Pajkowski said. "That's a huge step for us."
Pajkowski and Jones won seven straight games at the start of their doubles match, but Kramer and Berry answered back by winning two consecutive games to put the match at 7-2. Pajkowski and Jones put the match away in the 10th game, winning 8-2.
"We wanted the 8-0, but it's hard at this level to shut somebody out," Pajkowski said. "For the first seven games, I know we played very solid tennis."
In the second doubles match, freshmen Johnny Parkes and Miles Bugby faced a tough team in USF's Mitch Del Rosario and Fernando Rodriguez. However, Parkes and Bugby outplayed Rodriguez and Del Rosario to an 8-4 victory.
In the last doubles match of the day, senior Eric Conklin and freshman Graeme Kassautzki played into tennis's equivalent of overtime against Thong Tu and Rafael Corazza, and finally picked up the win in the 16th game of the match, 9-7.
Pajkowski said UNM's doubles sweep gave the team all the momentum it needed for the singles matches.
"If you're playing really well in doubles, then you come out confident for singles," Pajkowski said. "It helped me today a lot."
That was evident when the Lobos started their No. 1, No. 3 and No. 5 singles matches by wining 6-1. In the No. 1 spot playing for the Lobos was Jones, former Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year. Jones cruised to a 6-1, 6-3 win against USF's Berry.
As for the way UNM played as a whole, Jones said they did what they needed to do to win.
"We played pretty good today," Jones said. "It wasn't the toughest of opponents, but I think we got the job done, but we've played better this semester."
In the No. 2 spot for UNM was Parkes, who battled USF's Falko Huttenberger and lost the first set 6-7. Parkes won the next set 6-3, to take the match into one last set. Parkes pulled away quickly in the last set winning 10-2 to end the match.
Kassautzki defeated Kramer 6-1, 6-4, to give the Lobos the team match. The Lobos ended up winning 5-1 after freshman Chandler Brass's singles match was cut short because USF had to catch a plane home.
UNM head coach Alan Dils said he was confident about the ability of his players, but he was still worried about what USF could do.
"San Francisco is a dangerous team," Dils said, "but I thought we did a good job."
