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Josh Liederman

BUFFALO, NY - Winning four of the six singles matches, including the deciding match in a third-set tiebreaker, the University at Buffalo men's tennis team rallied to defeat Mid-American Conference rival Toledo, 4-3, Saturday night at the Village Glen Tennis Center in Williamsville, NY. The Bulls improved to 5-7 overall and evened their league record at 1-1 while the Rockets dropped to 6-9 overall and 0-1 in the MAC. The match lasted more than three hours and included six tiebreakers in the nine contests.

Senior Josh Liederman (Queens Village, NY/Benjamin Cardozo) gave the Bulls a hard-fought win with his come-from-behind effort to defeat Toledo's Travis Curran at fourth singles. The two split the opening sets with Liederman taking the first, 6-2, and Curran winning the second, 6-4. The third set remained close throughout as Liederman forced the extra session, taking the tiebreaker, 7-5, as UB's players rushed the court to congratulate the senior after his final winning shot.

Nick Zieziula

Liederman's heroics were needed after Toledo had tied the match following the sixth singles win by Cristobal Toral over UB's Albert Alant (Pretoria, South Africa/Niskayuna (NY)), 7-6 (4), 6-4.

UB's top three singles players also won their matches. Nick Zieziula (Hamburg, NY/St. Francis) and Mike Rockman (Toronto, Ontario/Thornlea) had relatively easy efforts in their wins. Zieziula, at number one, blitzed past Tony Tran, 6-1, 6-4, while Rockman, at number two, knocked off Josh Moran, 6-2, 6-3. Third singles player Yules Hadisubroto (Jakarta, Indonesia/SMUN 21) needed a first-set tiebreaker to get past Chris Clark. Hadisubroto took the match in straight sets, 7-6 (4), 6-3. At fifth singles, UB's Matt Kennedy (Mississauga, Ontario/Erindale) fell to Freddy Gomez, 7-6 (7), 6-3.

Mike Rockman

Toledo opened the match by picking up the doubles point with two contests decided in tiebreakers. Curran and Tran defeated Rockman and Liederman, 8-3, at number two while Gomez and Toral outlasted Alant and Kennedy at number three, 9-8 (0). UB's top doubles tandem of Zieziula and Hadisubroto salvaged a victory needing a 7-3 tiebreaker win to down Moran and Brian Rager, 9-8.

"For Josh Liederman, that was a career-making victory," said head coach Russ Crispell. "It was something that was a long time coming. He lost 35 pounds to play the game and tonight he played the game and left nothing behind."

UB's win over the Rockets was the third consecutive for the Bulls, including last season's 4-1 win in the MAC Tournament and a 4-3 regular season win at Toledo.

Crispell was impressed with his team's efforts against a Toledo squad that is much better equipped than the Bulls. "Toledo, as of last year, became fully-funded and we defeated a fully-funded MAC school."

The Bulls host another strong MAC squad on Friday, April 1 as they host Ball State at 7:00 pm.

Buffalo 4, Toledo 3

Doubles

1 Nick Zieziula/Yules Hadisubroto (UB) d. Josh Moran/Brian Rager (UT), 9-8 (7-3)

2 Travis Curran/Tony Tran (UT) d. Mike Rockman/Josh Liederman (UB), 8-3

3 Freddy Gomez/Cristobal Toral (UT) d. Albert Alant/Matt Kennedy (UB), 9-8 (7-0)

Singles

1 Nick Zieziula (UB) d. Tony Tran (UT), 6-1, 6-4

2 Mike Rockman (UB) d. Josh Moran (UT), 6-2, 6-3

3 Yules Hadisubroto (UB) d. Chris Clark (UT), 7-6 (7-4), 6-3

4 Josh Liederman (UB) d. Travis Curran (UT), 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5)

5 Freddy Gomez (UT) d. Matt Kennedy (UB), 7-6 (9-7), 6-3

6 Cristobal Toral (UT) d. Albert Alant (UB), 7-6 (7-4), 6-4