NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- The Christopher Newport men's tennis team punctuated the 2023 regular season with an exciting 5-4 win over regionally-ranked Washington College (Md.) on Sunday afternoon, hosting the Shoremen on Senior Day at the Eyre Courts. The Captains wrapped up the regular season with a 10-7 overall record after a razer-thin winning margin in doubles lifted CNU to the win. 

All three matches in doubles play were stretched to a tiebreaker in Sunday's bout as the evenly-matched pairs were deadlocked at seven games apiece at 1, 2, and 3 doubles. The visitors swung first, in a matchup of regionally-ranked tandems, the Captains fell on the top line 8-7 (3). In a pair of hard-fought responses, though, CNU grabbed hold of the momentum with wins at No. 2 and No. 3, including a thrilling final point from Ashton Legum and Alex Seretis to power the Captains into the lead. 

Drawing the Captains' even with the win at No. 3, Vincent Truong and Ahun Vodela paired up to outlast Christian Gruyon and Ryohei Kawai in an 8-7 (3) final. That would set up the momentum-shifting win from Legum and Seretis at No. 2, taking on Jack Fanshawe and Landon Strober for Washington College. After neither pair could win it in regulation, the tiebreaker was back-and-forth throughout as well. The Captains took a 4-3 lead in the breaker before the Washington duo won two straight points to take a 5-4 edge. Each team held until the Legum and Seretis finally won three straight, pulling out a 9-7 win in the tiebreaker to give CNU a 2-1 lead heading into singles. 

In singles action, Washington again struck first, evening the match at 2-2 with the win at No. 1, but CNU answered with two straight wins to teeter back in front, 4-2. First, Truong took down Ravichandran from Washington College in straight sets (6-3, 6-2) and second, Alec Strause celebrated his final home regular season match with a clean win at No. 2 against Strober (6-3, 6-2). 

Needing just one more team point to clinch the match, CNU turned to Legum at No. 6 against Gruyon. Legum won the first set 6-2 but Gruyon responded with a tiebreaker win in the second set. With the match even at one set apiece, Legum made sure the Captains would close the year on a high note with a dominant third-set victory, 6-1. 

CNU slipped by Washington, 5-4, and picked up the team's 10th win of the season. It marks the eighth season under head coach Eric Christiansen that the Captains have reached double-digit wins in a year, with the only two seasons the team failed to reach the mark coming in seasons' shortened by the CoVID-19 pandemic. 

Christopher Newport will now set its sights on the postseason as they prepare to host the 2023 Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference Championship next weekend. Match times and coverage will be announced by the league early this week, stay tuned to C2Csports.com for more.