UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's tennis team kicked off action at the Big Ten Indoor Championships Friday morning with the first round of doubles play followed by singles round of 64 and round of 32.
Doubles
In flight A, Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario, Canada) and Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece) started their tournament off with a win over Mateo Julio and Stephan Koenigfest of Purdue, 8-7(4). Lakoseljac/Antonopoulos will go on to play Oliver Okonkwo and Will Davies of Iowa Saturday at 8 a.m. in the second round.
In flight B, Alp Sentay (Izmar, Turkey) and Noah Sutter (New York, N.Y.) suffered a tough loss in the first round of doubles play to Iowa's Joe Tyler and Piotr Smietana, 8-4. Next up, Sentay/Sutter faced John Carlin and Billy Shisler of Michigan State in consolations.
In flight C, Chris Kuhnle (Shoreham, N.Y.) played with Iowa's Jason Kerst in doubles. They defeated William Gleason and Alvaro Moreno Lozano of Nebraska, 8-7(5). Kuhle/Kerst will meet Iowa's Nikita Snezhko and Jonas Larson next.
Singles
Kuhle, Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa), Lakoseljac, Antonopoulos, Sutter and all received byes in the singles round of 64.In the round of 32, Kuhle played the No. 1 seed, Tim Siebert of Ohio State. Kuhle lost a tough match 6-2, 6-2.
Lieb saw his first action of the tournament against Davies of Iowa. Lieb battled for three sets but ended up with the loss 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Lieb was able to pick up a demanding win over Shisler 6-1, 6-0 in his consolation match.
The No. 3/4 seed, Lakoseljac, faced off against Northwestern's AJ Joshi. Lakoseljac earned the win 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the round of 16, set to follow doubles competition tomorrow. He will go up against Wisconsin's Jesper Freimuth.
In the round of 32, Antonopoulos lost a hard-fought match to Larson of Iowa 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. In his consolation match, Antonopoulos defeated Isaac Nortley of Nebraska 6-4, 6-7(6), 11-9.
Sutter lost a hard-fought match to Iowa's Smietana 6-2, 6-1 to end his play in the singles main draw. Sutter then suffered another loss to Colin Harvey of Michigan State.
As the only Nittany Lion to play in the round of 64, Sentay met Trice Pickens of Northwestern. Sentay lost the match 6-4, 6-3. Sentay picked up the win over Alan Sweet of Wisconsin in his consolation match in straight sets 6-4, 6-0.
"This tournament is always tough," said associate head coach Paul Tobin. "Both Christos and Ben had competitive first round matches that could've gone either way. Great job by Christian, advancing in both singles and doubles with Christos."
Updates on the matches and all tournament information will be available on the tournament page.
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