The men’s tennis team continued to play well this past week, winning all four of its matches and beefing up its record for the season to an impressive 13-1.
Last Thursday, UR defeated Nazareth College 7-0. Playing at No. 1 singles, UR’s Eric Hansen defeated Ben Klempka 6-4, 6-0.
UR’s No. 2 and junior Josh Bruce-Black downed Jon Weaver 6-0, 6-0.
The Yellowjackets No. 3 player, freshman Thanos Kantarelis, defeated Tim Sorge 6-1, 6-2.
Occupying the No. 4 position, sophomore Mike Lee defeated Andre Putyera 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
The team’s No. 5 player, freshman Aaron Gettinger, defeated Terrance Nichols 6-1, 6-4, and the No. 6 player, junior Anand Popuri, beat Mitch Graves 6-1, 6-2.
In doubles, junior Eric Prince and senior Avinash Reddy beat Nazareth’s Klempka and Putyera 8-6, while UR’s second doubles team of Lee and senior Brian Shenker beat Nazareth’s team of Sorge and Weaver 8-2.
Regardless of the team’s success this season, some of the players still have reserved feelings about the future.
“Although most of our wins haven’t been against very challenging opponents, we have all taken care of business,” Kantarelis said. “The easy matches have given us all chances to fine tune our skills for the tougher competition ahead of us in the coming weeks.”
On Saturday, the Yellowjackets dominated LeMoyne College, shutting them down 9-0. In the match, Hansen defeated Frank Donaldson 6-2, 6-0, as the No.1 seat. Playing in the No. 2 spot, Reddy beat Ryan Davidson 6-0, 6-2, and Josh Bruce-Black defeated Kodi Kosmoski 6-0, 6-1, at the No. 3 seat.
Gettlinger moved up to the No. 4 position and beat Jason Kerznowski 6-1, 6-1. The No. 5 player, Shenker, shutout Val Ujkic 6-0, 6-0, and the No. 6 seat, Popuri, beat Ryan Delany 8-1.
Playing in the No. 1 doubles position, UR’s Hansen and Kantarelis defeated LeMoyne’s top team of Donaldson and Kerznowski 8-1.
At No. 2 doubles, Reddy and junior Eric Prince beat LeMoyne’s Davidson and Kosmoski 8-1.
At the No. 3 doubles spot, Lee Shenker of UR defeated LeMoyne’s Ujkic and Delany 8-1.
In action on Sunday, UR defeated Niagara University 5-2.
On Tuesday, the Yellowjackets took on Hobart College at home and won 6-1. Reddy, Bruce-Black, Kantarelis, Prince and Lee all won their singles matches in straight sets.
The team’s only loss came when Hobart’s Peter Pine beat Hansen in three sets at the No. 1 singles position.
Playing No. 1 doubles, Hansen and Kantarelis won 8-3, Reddy and Prince won 8-1 at No. 2 doubles and Lee and Shenker won 8-0 win at No. 3 doubles.
“[Hansen] played very well against Hobart’s No.1 [player], Peter Pine,” Kantarelis said. “[Pine] is one of the best players in the region and Hansen played very tough tennis bringing the match all the way to a third set tiebreaker, where he came up short.”
Ogorek can be reached at aogorek@campustimes.org.
Serafini can be reached at jserafini@campustimes.org.
