Third place finish for Parodi and Hull at Oracle Cup
SURPRISE, Ariz. – Freshman Nikolai Parodi (CMC) and senior Glenn Hull (CMC) competed as a doubles pair while Parodi also played in the singles draw at the ITA Oracle Cup over the weekend in Surprise, Ariz. The pair placed third in the doubles competition and Parodi finished seventh in the singles.
Parodi and Hull were matched up with four-time Oracle Cup qualifiers and top seed in the draw, Buxbaum and Walsh of Johns Hopkins in the first round. CMS upset the JHU team 6-3, 7-6(3) to move onto the semifinals to face Jemison and Omsky of Emory. The Stags held a 3-1 advantage in the first set before Parodi was broken and the match went back on serve. At 6-6 in the first set, CMS lost their only tie-break of the tournament and eventually lost 7-6(3), 6-1 in the match. The team from Emory went on to win the championship after beating Tyer and Lambeth from Trinity in the next match.
In the second match on Friday, Hull and Parodi played off in the third/fourth place match against two members of last year's NCAA team champions, Bowdoin. The Stags defeated Jiang-Wolfe 3-6, 6-3, (11-9), winning the decisive match tie-break on their second match point to claim third place.
The last doubles pair from CMS to compete in the Oracle Cup was Warren Wood and Joe Dorn in 2012, also finishing in third place.
On the singles side, Parodi became the first CMS freshman to participate in the event since Michael Starr in 2006.
In the first round, he rallied from being down 6-2, 4-1 and two service breaks to No. 3 seed Mohanad Alhouni of Gustavus Adolphus, to win the second set in tie-break. Parodi then led 4-2 with a break in the third set, but lost steam and dropped four games consecutively to lose the match.
Against David Liu of University of Chicago, Parodi was similarly down 4-1 and then 5-2 but came back to force a first set tie-break, which he lost 7-3. The second set went Lui's way as well 6-3 and sent Parodi to the seventh/eighth place match.
In the final match, he defeated UT-Tyler's Arthur Fagundes 6-4, 7-6(7) in Parodi's best match of the tournament. Again, he found himself down a break of serve twice in the second set and pulled himself back to force a tie-break. In the tie-break, he was down two set points at 6-4, but saved those, then had his first match point at 7-6, and final one at 8-7.
This concludes the fall season for the Stag tennis team who will pick back up with competition in February 2017.
By Emily Nordhoff
Sports Information Director
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