Jan. 22, 2015
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The No. 26 Penn State men's tennis team makes their 2015 spring debut this weekend as they travel to Lexington, Ky. to participate in the ITA Kickoff Weekend. The Nittany Lions take on No. 19 Kentucky on Friday at 1 p.m. The winner of that match will face the winner of the No. 20 South Florida/No. 25 Vanderbilt match at 5 p.m. on Saturday. A consolation match will be played at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Head Coach Jeff Zinn's Nittany Lions are looking to get a strong start on their goal to get back to the NCAA Tournament after reaching the second round last year. Penn State had a solid fall tournament season, with three different players earning six singles wins.
Sophomore Nika Dolidze (Tbilisi, Georgia), senior Tomas Hanzlik (Prague, Czech Republic) and junior Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) all collected six singles wins.
Sophomore Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y.) had five victories, while junior Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.), sophomore Marc Collado Castells (Barcelona, Spain) and sophomore Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) each earned four wins.
Dolidze and Hanzlik are ranked 59th in the ITA Doubles Poll, while Laaribi and Trkulja combined to go 5-3 in doubles and Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) paired up for four wins.
Kentucky made their season debut last weekend, going 2-2, with wins against Dayton and Eastern Kentucky and losses against No. 12 Duke and No. 14 Notre Dame. Junior Beck Pennington is ranked 92nd in the ITA Poll and went 3-1 last weekend, including a win against Duke's #36 Jason Tahir. Sophomore Jerry Lopez also went 3-1 to start the spring. Pennington and Kevin Lai went 3-1 at the top doubles spot for the Wildcats.
South Florida began their spring with two wins, a pair of 4-0 victories against Stetson and Florida Atlantic. Bulls junior Roberto Cid, ranked 19th in the ITA Poll, won both of his matches in straight sets. Sophomore Sasha Gozun also won both of his matches in straight sets. Cid and Gozun, ranked sixth in the ITA Doubles Poll, picked up their first doubles win of the spring. Also earning a win were Oliver Pramming and Justin Roberts, ranked 44th.
Vanderbilt went 3-1 last weekend with wins against Georgia State, Lipscomb and Belmont. However, the Commodores dropped a 4-3 match against No. 34 Northwestern. Senior Gonzales Austin, ranked 10th in the ITA Poll, went 3-0 to improve to 15-4 overall. Rhys Johnson, a junior, is ranked 73rd, but is still looking for his first win of the spring. Austin and Johnson are rated 5th in the doubles poll and went 2-0 this past weekend.
Please check back to GoPSUSports.com throughout the weekend for coverage of the Penn State men's tennis team at the ITA Kickoff Weekend. Updates are also available on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.