IRVINE, Calif. - The UC Irvine men's tennis team secured a 4-2 Big West victory over Hawai'i Friday afternoon in their regular-season home finale at Anteater Tennis Stadium.
 
The Anteaters (12-7, 4-1 Big West) moved into a tie for second in the conference standings with one match remaining.
 
The Rainbow Warriors (9-9, 2-3 Big West) won the doubles point to take the early lead. After the 'Bows cruised to a win on court three, Max Fardanesh and Rohan Sachdev closed out a 6-4 victory over Timothy Li/Kosuke Nakanishi, 6-4, at No. 1. Adriano Dzhenev/Kent Mueller then edged Tal Goodman and Hiroki Sakagawa, 7-5, at the second position to give UH the 1-0 advantage.
 
Sakagawa quickly tied it up for the 'Eaters as he dispatched Azuma Visaya, 6-2, 6-2, at the top of the singles lineup. It was Sakagawa's team-leading 12th dual-match win.
 
The rest of the matches were tightly contested. UCI took its first lead at 2-1 after Fardanesh delivered an impressive 7-6 (4), 6-4 win over Li at No. 2. Dzhenev then outlasted Sohrob Amiryavari, 7-5, 7-5, on court four to bring Hawai'i back even.

Greg Gamal put UC Irvine back on top as he rallied to defeat Maeda, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Ruining Huang followed suit as he also bounced back from a 1-0 deficit to take down Mueller, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Huang was trailing 4-1 in the first set before coming back to tie it up. Although Mueller held on for the victory, Huang carried the momentum the rest of the way to the match-clinching win.
 
Gamal, Huang, and Sakagawa all improved to 4-0 in Big West singles play.
 
Goodman held a commanding 5-0 lead in the third frame when his match was abandoned. Goodman won the first set, 6-4, and fell in a second-set tiebreaker, 6-7 (4).
 
The Anteaters will close out the regular season on Saturday, April 18, when they make their way to La Jolla for a 2 p.m. match at UC San Diego.