October 15, 2016 - UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; The Penn State Nittany Lion men's tennis team had another strong day of tennis at the ITA Atlantic Regional Championship, hosted by Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Several players in blue and white advanced further into the competition today.
Singles matches were lucrative for the Lions today, coming out with a total of seven wins in the main draw. Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France) met Jared Isaacs from Duquesne and won 6-3, 6-3. Senior Marc Collado went up against Tristian Bautil from William & Mary and was triumphant with a 6-2, 6-1 win. Gabriel Nemeth (Brasilia, Brazil) battled with Eddie Ayers from George Mason University, finishing on top with a 6-0, 3-6, 6-4 win. Nika Dolidze (Tbilisi, Georgia) played against William & Mary's Damon Niquet and won 7-6(4), 6-2. Senior Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y) had a slow first set against Georgetown's Mike Chen, but fought back and won the remaining sets to take the match 1-6, 6-2, 6-3. Freshman Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario, Canada) faced Old Dominion University's Justin Herrera and finished the match in two sets, winning 6-2, 6-4. Henry Gordon (New Braunfels, Tx.) went up against Juan Araoz from Hampton University and came out on top 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Penn State was also successful in doubles matches, finishing with two wins for the day. De La Bassetiere and Lakoseljac teamed up to battle Daniel Gutierrez and James Lange from George Mason University, finishing the match with an 8-7(5) win. Bassetiere and Lakoseljac then went on to defeat William & Mary pair Ryan Newman and Aidan Talcot with the same result, 8-7(5). The second successful Nittany Lion pair today was Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) and Gabriel Nemeth. Lutschaunig and Nemeth first faced off with Marco Lam and Mac Rechan from Georgetown and won the match 8-5. The partners the went on to match with Ghristos Hadjigeorgio and Fernando Sala from George Washington Univerisity and also came out triumphant with an 8-5 win. These wins will put both these pairs of Nittany Lions into the quarterfinal rounds of this championship.
"Today we had to battle in quite a few matches, but luckily we pulled out most of those wins," says head coach Jeff Zinn. "We needed those matches to get us ready for the tougher matches to come in the next few days. I'm glad that we got seven players through to the round of 32 and two doubles teams to the quarterfinals. We will have to compete tomorrow at our highest level and hopefully today gave us the needed confidence to go into these next rounds."
"We had a good day today. We picked up nine wins, two in doubles matches and seven in singles," said associate coach Paul Tobin. "Conditions were perfect and the guys played well. We had some tight doubles matches and pulled out three, three set singles matches that could've gone either way."
The Lions will continue competition tomorrow morning at the ITA Atlantic Regional Championships. Check back to GoPSUsports and our social media accounts for updates throughout the tournament!
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