Feb. 24, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's tennis team is ranked 39th in this week's ITA Poll, released Tuesday. The Nittany Lions are 3-6 after splitting two matches this past weekend. Junior Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) is ranked 121st in the ITA Singles Poll.
The Nittany Lions, led by Head Coach Jeff Zinn and Assistant Coach Paul Tobin, have a big opportunity this weekend as they host No. 8 Ohio State on Friday at 3 p.m. and No. 23 Princeton on Saturday at Noon, both matches in the Indoor Tennis Center.
The Buckeyes, 11-3 this spring, are two-time defending Big Ten champions. The Tigers are 9-2, coming off wins this past weekend over No. 30 Mississippi State and No. 35 Clemson.
Penn State split matches this past weekend, falling 4-3 at No. 64 Cornell, but bouncing back in a 5-2 victory against James Madison.
Against Cornell, the Nittany Lions won the doubles point, with wins at No. 1 by sophomore Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y.) and Stakhovsky and No. 3 by senior Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and junior Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada). They also got singles wins at the top two spots from Stakhovsky and sophomore Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.).
The Nittany Lions swept the doubles action against the Dukes, including a dominant 8-0 win at No. 3 by Trkulja and sophomore Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) and got singles wins from sophomore Marc Collado (Barcelona, Spain), Fennell, Laaribi and Trkulja.
Stakhovsky has two wins this spring and three wins overall, with a pair of wins coming against ranked opponents, South Florida's Roberto Cid, ranked 19th, and Old Dominion's Carlos Lopez Villa, ranked 42nd.
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