Feb. 3, 2012

Contact: Renee Adam

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CSU-Columbia Results

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Ali Shabib and Nolan Marks posted Cleveland State's lone victory on the day at No. 1 doubles, as the Viking men's tennis team fell at Columbia, 7-0 Friday afternoon.

"Today we were not able to find ways to slow the match down which is something that we wanted to do against this tough Columbia team," head coach Brian Etzkin said. "Columbia played a great match and they held the baseline very well and they were aggressive in holding their court position, which is something that we need to improve on. Shabib and Marks had great energy throughout their entire doubles match today and I am very excited that they got the win. We played some strong tennis through the first half of all of the doubles matches, we just weren't able to come away with the other victories."

Shabib and Marks earned an 8-5 victory over the Columbia duo of Max Schnur and Ashok Narayana at No. 1 doubles, but that would be all that the Vikings could manage against a very strong Lion team. Columbia earned victories at both the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles to pick up the first point of the night.

The Lions swept through the singles matches then, as they earned six singles wins on the day for the 7-0 victory. Matt Kuelker, who played at No. 2 singles, gave Columbia's Nathaniel Gery everything that he could handle, pushing the match to three sets. Kuelker earned a 7-6 (5) first set victory, before falling behind 6-4, 6-0 in the next two sets.

"Kuelker had a great singles match for us today, as he pushed his opponent to three sets," Etzkin said. "He had a high level of competitiveness tonight and he was able to play some of his best tennis that he has in a while. We are going to keep fighting hard on the court and we will eventually be able to come away with our first victory and after that the wins will come easier."

CSU will return to the court tomorrow afternoon (Feb. 4) as they face Princeton, who is currently ranked No. 63 in the latest ITA rankings at 1:00 p.m.