ORLANDO, Fla. – The Saint Joseph's men's tennis team advanced to the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 Championship with a 4-1 win over seventh-seeded Duquesne at the USTA National Campus on Friday.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
• Saint Joseph's took the lead with a pair of doubles wins.  Nickolas Frisk and Nathan Perrone won their first-flight match before Justus Agbo and Alp Sentay combined to secure the point with a win in the second.
 
• Duquesne got a foothold in the match early in singles play, winning a pair of first sets, but Perrone scored the first singles point with a straight-sets win in the first flight.
 
• Nassim Fenjiro won his sixth-flight match to put the Hawks on the brink of victory.  After the Dukes grabbed a win in the fourth, Eshan Kanetkar put things away for SJU, bouncing back from a set down to win in the fifth flight and send the Hawks to the semifinals.
 
BEHIND THE BOX SCORE
• The trip to the semifinals is the second in program history and the first since 2004.
 
• Perrone notched his 70^th career singles victory, becoming the third Hawk to reach the 70-win mark after Antonio Aniello and Kyle Chalmers, who share the all-time record with 73.

HAWK TALK
"Today it was an absolute battle on the courts, and we knew that before going into it," head coach Marc Pibernat said.  "All the pressure was on us, being the number-two seed for what we did during the regular season, and it was definitely felt on the court, especially in the beginning of singles.

"We are in the semifinals of the A-10 Championship; what this group has done this year is an unbelievable achievement and now it's time to play with no pressure and leave everything we have on the tennis courts one more time!  Massive shoutout to Eshan for coming up huge for us when we needed it most, giving us that fourth point."
 
UP NEXT
The second-seeded Hawks will meet third-seeded Dayton on Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. for a spot in Sunday's championship match.
 
RESULTS
 
#2 Saint Joseph's 4, #7 Duquesne 1
 
Doubles
1. Nickolas Frisk / Nathan Perrone (SJU) def. Alex Mascioli / Alejandro Rodriguez (DUQ), 6-3
2. Justus Agbo / Alp Sentay (SJU) def. Jin Dassanayake / Joey Matthews (DUQ), 6-4
3. Nassim Fenjiro / Alex MacNeil (SJU) vs. Tamirlan Teberikov / Liam Wickwire (DUQ), 5-5
Order of Finish: 1, 2
 
Singles
1. Perrone (SJU) def. Kaipo Marshall (DUQ), 6-2, 6-0
2. Frisk (SJU) led Mascioli (DUQ), 0-6, 6-2, 3-2
3. Rodriguez (DUQ) led Sentay (SJU), 7-5, 2-5
4. Teberikov (DUQ) def. Agbo (SJU), 7-6 (3), 6-2
5. Eshan Kanetkar (SJU) def. Dassanayake (DUQ), 1-6, 6-3, 7-5
6. Fenjiro (SJU) def. Matthews (DUQ), 6-4, 6-4
Order of Finish: 1, 6, 4, 5
 
Game Scores
Singles: Saint Joseph's 65, Duquesne 56
Doubles: Saint Joseph's 17, Duquesne 12
Total: Saint Joseph's 82, Duquesne 68