This post was written by Hatchet reporter Aaron Esparza.

Celebrating his 23rd birthday, senior Ulrik Thomsen gave his men’s tennis teammates a present of their own, clinching their 4-3 win over St. John’s Sunday, with a come from behind victory.

Last week, the men’s tennis team got off to a rough start, dropping back-to-back matches to Top 75 opponents. With such lofty goals as an Atlantic-10 championship, getting back on track this past weekend was a must.

Arriving at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the Colonials immediately jumped out to a good start, taking the first point of the evening on the strength of their doubles play. In the first match, junior Francisco Dias and freshman Julius Tverijonas ran away with a 6-1 victory, followed in the second match by senior Nikita Fomin and sophomore Danil Zelenkov with a 6-3 win.

Head coach Greg Munoz said earlier this season that consistently getting the doubles point will be huge for his team, especially against tough, evenly matched opponents like A-10 foe VCU.

In singles action, GW faced a stronger threat from the Red Storm offense. Although St. John’s never seemed to dominate any individual match, they instead took advantage of their collective depth against the shallow Colonials squad.

In the first singles match, Dias faced off against St. John’s R.J. Del Nunzio and lost the first set by a close score of 5-6, but rallied to win the next two sets 6-1, 6-3 to take the point. In match No. 2, Fomin experienced the first loss of the evening against SJU’s Erick Reyes with an uneven score of 5-6, 6-1, 1-6.

The two teams continued this back-and-forth struggle, reaching a score of 3-3, until Thomsen gave the Colonials the victory with two very strong final sets (5-6, 6-4, 6-3).

While it may be easy to concede this match as GW’s ability to defeat only unranked opponents, it’s hard to ignore the intangibles behind the victory that could serve the team well as it ramps up for more competitive play. That sentiment was echoed by Munoz after the match.

“Great heart [shown by] Francisco Dias and Ulrik Thomsen,” Munoz said. “Those two guys’ wins today made a huge statement of our improvements, our mental toughness, and hopefully it starts us towards more winning ways.”

GW will head to Hanover, NH this weekend for the ECAC Indoor Championships.