Sept. 25, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's tennis team begins the 2014 fall tournament season this weekend. The Nittany Lions will send team members to the Penn Invite in Philadelphia and ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla. The invite starts on Friday and goes through Sunday. ITA All-Americans begin on Saturday, with Prequalifying Draw matches. Qualifying Draw begins on Monday, Sept. 29 and the Main Draw will follow beginning on Oct. 2.
Head Coach Jeff Zinn's Nittany Lions look to have a solid fall season to set them up for another strong spring. Penn State finished last spring with a 22-6 record with eight wins in the Big Ten and 11 against ranked opponents. The blue and white made it to the NCAA Tournament, where they advanced to the second round.
Junior Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) leads the Penn State players going to the ITA All-American Championships. Stakhovsky is ranked 29th in the preseason ITA Singles Poll. He will participate in the singles Main Draw.
Stakhovsky finished last year with an 18-8 mark with eight wins against ranked opponents. He ranked as high as 33rd in the ITA Poll and advanced to the second round at the NCAA Singles Championships.
Competing in the Prequalifying Singles bracket are junior Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.), sophomore Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) and senior Tomas Hanzlik (Prague, Czech Republic).
Barry went 26-9 in singles last year, including a 9-4 mark in tournament play. Fennell went 20-13 in his freshman campaign, including 4-3 last fall. Hanzlik went 5-5 in tournaments.
Stakhovsky and Fennell will also compete in the doubles Qualifying Draw. The duo is ranked 43rd in the preseason ITA Poll.
Making the trip to the Penn Invite are Marc Collado Castells (Barcelona, Spain), Nika Dolidze (Tbilisi, Georgia), Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y.), Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.), Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada).
Trkulja, a junior, won eight tournament matches last fall and finished the year with 22 wins overall. Castells, a sophomore, had 16 wins last year, including eight in tournament play. Fellow sophomore Dolidze won 13 matches overall, while Reilly, a senior, won 11. Lutschaunig, a sophomore, picked up five singles wins last year.
Laaribi, a sophomore, will make his Penn State debut after transferring in from Wake Forest. Laaribi went 14-10 in singles last year.
The Penn Invite will include eight singles flights and four doubles flights. The flight champions will be determined by a point system.
Other teams competing at the Penn Invite include Binghamton, Buffalo, Columbia, Cornell, Drexel, Georgetown, Lehigh, Minnesota, Montmouth, Penn, Princeton, St. Joseph's, St. John's, Temple and Yale.
Please check back to GoPSUSports.com throughout the weekend for more coverage of the Penn State men's tennis team. Updates will also be available on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.