The men’s tennis team pulled out a 5-4 win at its home opener match against Vassar College last Saturday inside the Gosman sports arena.

After poor doubles performances on their 2-3 California trip during February break where the Judges went 2-13 in individual doubles matches, Brandeis got off to an early lead in doubles play against Vassar with senior captains Josh Jordan ’13 and Steven Milo ’13 defeating Andrew Guzick and Dan Freeman 8-6 at No. 1 doubles. David Yovanoff ’13 teamed with rookie Mitch Krems ’16 to defeat Nick Jasso and Josh Kessler 9-7. At No. 3 doubles the Vassar team of Daniel Cooper and Christian Phelps took down Michael Secular ’15 and Alec Siegel ’15.

After a stretch of matches on the slower California hard courts, playing on the fast multipurpose surface in Gosman, Jordan won easily at No. 2 singles, 6-2, 6-1. Krems, now 5-1 in singles dual matches this season, recovered from losing a first-set tiebreaker against Cooper, who ran him side to side with heavy lefty spin, to defeat his Vassar opponent 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-2. Yovanoff fell to Jasso 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 and Secular lost to Phelps 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 at No. 5 singles. At No. 1 singles, Milo lost an up-and-down match in a third-set tiebreaker to Guzick, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-1).

That left the end of the six-hour match tied at 4-4 with Siegel splitting sets at No. 6 singles. Strong serving propelled him to a quick 4-0 lead in the third and he defeated Kessler 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 to clinch the match for the Judges.

On Saturday, the Judges travel to Middlebury College to face Oneonta State in the morning and Middlebury in the evening. The women’s squad, ranked No. 22 in the country, went 2-3 on their California trip and will also play Middlebury on Saturday.