The Washington men’s tennis team defeated Princeton 5-2 to move to 4-1 on the season.
The afternoon began with the Huskies taking the doubles point, winning all three matches. Kawika Lam and Enzo Sommer dominated 6-0. Jake Douglas and Jack Davis were close behind with a 6-2 win.
The final match to finish up was the pairing of Mitch Stewart and Piers Foley. The duo was victorious in a tiebreaker, but the most notable part of the match was an early shot to the back that Foley took. He was able to finish the doubles match but was scratched from the singles lineup.
As it turned out, he was fine and the move was not injury-related.
“We've played our first few matches with the same six guys in singles and we know over the course of the season we're going to be using seven or eight guys,” head coach Matt Anger said. “Today I looked around to see if anyone's fatigued, and he played a long match yesterday, so I just randomly picked him.”
Foley was replaced in singles by junior Sebastian Hawken. Hawken did a good job in his season debut, winning a thrilling 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 match to finish off the day for Washington.
Another effect of the Foley absence was Davis moving up to court 5. The freshman lost 7-6, 3-6. It is his first loss as a Husky.
The other lineup change, that happened prior to the injury, was a switch between courts 1 and 2 with Douglas and Stewart.
“As Mitch is more and more comfortable coming back from his hip surgery from last year, which he is, he's running all over the place now,” Anger said. “I'm hoping if we can, all things being equal to, to move them back and forth during the year.”
Douglas won 6-4, 6-1 while Stewart won 6-2, 6-0. Stewart had his own personal cheering section rooting him on today.
“I know these kids because I used to practice at the club they're coming from in Mercer Island,” Stewart said. “It was cool for them to support me and cheer for me like that. It was flattering, and sometimes distracting, but for the most part it was great.”
Washington will take the court again on Feb. 9 against UC Davis at 5 p.m.
Reach reporter Kyle Gehler at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @kylegehler
