FLUSHING, N.Y. – Top-seeded Queens defeated second-seeded St. Thomas Aquinas, 4-1, in the 2024 ECC Men's Tennis Championship final, held at the Queens Tennis Bubble on Saturday evening. The Knights clinched the doubles point and singles points at No. 4, No. 5, and, in dramatic fashion, No. 1, with ECC Player of the Year Roni Rikkonen bringing it home. With the victory, Queens (15-6) earned its sixth title in the last seven years and 10th overall in program history and will now advance to the CACC/ECC Conference Championship final next Saturday, May 4
with the NCAA Tournament automatic qualifier on the line.
(1) Queens 4, (2) St. Thomas Aquinas 1
Box Score
DOUBLES
The No. 3 pair of senior Francisco Gonzalez (La Plata, Argentina) and ECC All-Conference freshman Tim Andersson (Linkoping, Sweden) would give the Knights an early lead in doubles play with a 6-4 victory over Seth Newman and Henry Ronnberg. With the Queens pair down 2-0, the Knights would battle back with five straight points to take a 5-2 lead. The Spartans duo would cut the advantage down to 5-4 before the Knights duo helped the No. 1 seed take a 1-0 lead.
The Spartans' No. 1 pair of ECC All-Conference selection Ondrej Sramek and Ludovico Truffelli would defeat senior Omar El Shehawey (Cairo, Egypt), and Rikkonen (Tampere, Finland) to the final score of 6-3 to tie the doubles action at 1-1.
During the regular season, the Knights would go into singles action trailing 1-0 in both meetings before Queens rallied in singles play to complete the series sweep. But on Saturday, the No. 2 pair of ECC All-Conference sophomore Lucas Foix Sotos (Javea, Spain) and ECC All-Conference senior Cameron Henricy (Las Palmas, Spain) had other ideas against Nathan Yacar and Don Vinz Lominoque. With the Queens duo trailing 2-0 in the early going, they would battle back to tie the match at 3-3 before both sides traded points.
With the Knights trailing 5-6, Queens would force the tiebreaker to determine who would go into singles play with an advantage.
The Spartans duo took an early 3-1 advantage before the Knights answered back with four straight points to take a 5-3 advantage. But as the Spartans cut the advantage down to 5-4, both traded a point before the Knights earned the tiebreaker battle to the final score of 7-6 (7-5) to put the Knights up 1-0 heading into singles play.
SINGLES
Behind Foix Sotos's No. 4 singles victory, Queens would take a 2-0 lead as the sophomore defeated Sramek in straight sets to the score of 6-4, 6-3.
The Spartans would cut the Knights advantage down to 2-1 as rookie Andersson fell at No. 3 singles in straight sets to the score of 4-6, 3-6 against Newman, the ECC Rookie of the Year.
El Shehawey would give Queens a 3-1 advantage as he knocked off Lennart Lehmann to the score of 6-2, 6-3 at No. 5 singles.
With three singles matches left and the Spartans having won the first set at No. 1, No. 2, and No. 5 singles, Queens would need to mount a comeback to clinch the match.
Just as Rikkonen forced the third set at No. 1 singles against Vinz Lominoque, Henricy at No. 2 singles would force the third set against Truffelli and freshman Noah Gauthier (La Colle-sur-Loup, France) earned the second set victory over Ronnberg.
For Rikkonen, who has put together quite a resume in his final year in Flushing beginning with becoming the first Knight to become an ITA East Regional Champion before being awarded ECC Player of the Year early this week, the Knights' repeat title victory would come at his court.
In the first set, it would be all Vinz Lominoquem who took a 6-3 victory before Rikkonen went back and forth before earning a 7-6 (7-3) second set victory to force the third set.
In the third set, Rikkonen fell behind twice, 1-0, 2-1 before the Finland native put the match to rest with five straight points as the senior clinched the match with a 6-2 third set victory as Queens earned the victory to the final score of 4-1 Saturday evening.
Courtesy of Queens College Sports Information.