Blacksburg, Va. – Penn State men's tennis met Middle Tennessee at the final day of the Virginia Tech Invitational. The Nittany Lions collected 71 total individual points over the three day span.
At the end of day three, Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France) earned 22 individual points in head-to-head competition and a third place overall finish in the tournament. Max Rauch of Middle Tennessee came in second behind Jason Kros of Virginia Tech who came out on top.
DOUBLES
At the No. 1 spot, Christian Lakoseljac (King City, Ontario, Canada) and Christos Antonopoulos (Athens, Greece) were defeated by Edge/Moonen, 6-2.
Alp Sentay (Izmar, Turkey) and Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) took on Stormon/Slump in the No. 2 match. The Nittany Lions dropped a tough decision, 6-3.
To finish off doubles competition at the No. 3 position, De La Bassetiere and Zach Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) lost a hard-fought match to Rocha/Rauch, 6-3.
There was no doubles match at No. 4.
SINGLES
To start off at No. 1, De La Bassetiere lost his only singles match of the tournament to Max Rauch, 6-3, 7-5.
At the No. 2 spot, Lakoseljac earned a win against Stijn Slump, 7-6(6), 6-2, to bring his final point total up to 13 to end the tournament.
Antonopoulos picked up a victory against Tom Moonen in straight sets at the No. 3 slot, 6-3, 6-3. He registered 18 total points at the end of competition.
At No. 4, B. Lieb lost a close match to Chris Edge, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6. He ended the tournament with six points.
Sentay defeated Pavel Motl at the No. 5 slot, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(4) to bring his total up to nine points after day three.
Jordan Nickerson (Boca Raton, Fla.) suffered his first singles loss of the tournament to Luis Morell Raschiatore at the No. 6 position, 6-4, 6-2, to keep his point total at four.
At the No. 7 match, Z. Lieb was defeated by Francisco Rocha after battling for three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 10-4, to keep his total at one point at the completion of the tournament.
There was no singles match at No. 8.
"I thought we played better than we did on Saturday, and players that needed to get better from one day to another did so," head coach Jeff Zinn said. "We need to adjust with the quick turnaround for our tournament at LSU."
"This tournament gave us all we needed for next weekend's dual matches at LSU," associate coach Paul Tobin said. "Middle Tennessee is well coached and they looked better than us on the third day of competition. We were up in singles but couldn't close out two tiebreakers that would have greatly changed the outcome."
Next up, the Nittany Lions will be back on the road at the LSU Invite, Jan. 25-27.
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