January 28, 2017 - UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; The Penn State men's tennis team faced the Notre Dame Fighting Irish today during the second day of the ITA Kickoff Weekend. The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. hosted the competition at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center.
The Lions fell to Notre Dame 4-1 in this consolation round of the ITA Kickoff.
Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France), Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario, Canada), Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece, Marc Collado (Barcelona, Spain), Henry Gordon (New Braunfels, Tx.), and Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) fought for the blue and white in singles competition today. Freshman Christian Lakoseljac won his set against Edward Covalschi 6-2, 6-2, bringing in a point for the Lions.
Doubles pairs De La Bassetiere and Lakoseljac, David Kohan (Sydney, Australia) and Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.), and Antonopoulos and Matt Galush (Cary, N.C.) showed good effort today as well against the Fighting Irish. Kohan and Lutschaunig tied 6-6 against Notre Dame's Gamble/Lebedev pair.
"I was hesitant to schedule such a tough tournament to open the season with such a young team," said head coach Jeff Zinn at the conclusion of Lions last match at the ITA Kickoff Weekend. "But, in my opinion, that's the only way to get your team's attention and realize that there is a lot of work that needs to be done if you are going to carry the mantle that your predecessor's set for you. I know we have the pieces that are necessary to be good, and it's my job to figure it out and put our team in the best position to win. We have four tough matches next weekend, with the marquee match being Cornell on Sunday afternoon. We need to find our way this week in practice and get ready to protect our home turf," said Zinn. "I was really pleased with Christian Lakoseljac in his singles matches today, and also Ben Lieb. They really battled hard for two and a half hours today and gave us a good chance against Notre Dame. Notre Dame is very well coached and has an extremely talented team, that's why we wanted to play this tournament to see where we were."
"We certainly had an opportunity in doubles at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots," said associate head coach Paul Tobin. "It came down to the deuce points again on serve and just didn't go our way, Notre Dame has one of the best doubles in the ACC and I thought it could have easily gone either way. We had some good results in singles competition, Christian Lakoseljac played lights out and gained us a point. Ben, Constant, and Marc gave us a strong effort and this could have easily been a closer match if we played out."
The Nittany Lion's next conquest will bring them back to Happy Valley for the first home matches of the season on Saturday, February 4 and Sunday, February 5. The Lions will be hosting double headers against Cleveland State and Lehigh on Saturday and Cornell and St. Bonaventure on Sunday.
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Singles Results:
1) #27 Josh Hagar (ND) def. Constant De La Bassetiere (PSU) 7-5, 3-3
2) Christian Lakoseljac (PSU) def. Edward Covalschi (ND) 6-2, 6-2
3) #119 Alex Lebedev (ND) def. Christos Antonopoulos (PSU) 6-4, 6-1
4) Matthew Gamble (ND) def. Marc Collado (PSU) 7-6(3), 6-3
5) Grayson Broadus (ND) def. Henry Gordon (PSU) 6-0, 6-3
6) Guillermo Cabrera (ND) def. Ben Lieb (PSU) 3-6, 7-6 (8-6)
Doubles Results:
1) #10 Covalschi/Hagar (ND) def. De La Bassetiere/Lakoslejac 7-5
2) Kohan/Lutschaunig (PSU) vs. Gamble/Lebedev (ND) 6-6
3) Broadus/Kempin (ND) def. Antonopoulos/Galush (PSU) 6-2