Feb. 7, 2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's tennis team will travel to Ithaca, N.Y. this weekend to take on Memphis and Cornell University. The Lions will face Memphis Saturday, Feb. 10, at 2 p.m. and Cornell Sunday, Feb. 11 at 1 p.m.
The Nittany Lions (3-2) are coming off two dominating wins against Buffalo and Temple. Memphis (2-2) is coming off a close loss this past weekend while Cornell (1-2) had a tough loss against Clemson.
"We are on the road against two NCAA tournament teams from last year," said head coach Jeff Zinn. "Cornell finished the season ranked No. 26 while Memphis finished their season at No. 36. We need to play better than the last time we went on the road. We know what we have to do to compete with the best teams in the country. This will be a quality test for our team and seeing if the hard work has translated to success on the court."
"The guys are getting that itch to compete," said associate head coach Paul Tobin. "We are practicing well but we need to get plenty of matchplay and confident wins. Both Cornell and Memphis are strong with very good coaching. We are competing well in doubles and need to keep the momentum and energy going. This is a huge opportunity for us to get ranking points early in the season."
Last weekend, Penn State took on Buffalo and Temple and swept both teams 7-0. Against Buffalo, Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario), Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece), Gabriel Nemeth (Brasilia, Brazil), and Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) all defeated their opponents in two sets. Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France) and Alp Sentay (Izmar, Turkey) both dropped a set but outmatched their opponents in the third set.
In doubles, Galush and Nemeth swept Buffalo 6-0. De La Bassetiere and Lakoseljac knocked off Buffalo in a tiebreak and clinched the doubles point.
Against Temple, De La Bassetiere, Lakoseljac, Sentay and Nemeth defeated their opponents in two sets. Antonopoulos faced a tough loss in the first set, but came out victorious in the third set to win the match. Ben Lieb lost his second set in tiebreak but outplayed Temple to clinch a team sweep.
In doubles, the pair of Antonopoulos and Sentay and duo of Galush and Nemeth defeated their opponents 6-2.
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