PHILADELPHIA—Penn State Men's Tennis concluded their first tournament of the fall season on Sunday at the Penn Invitational hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. Playing in their first fall tournament in two years, the Nittany Lions took the opportunity to start prepping for their spring season.
Day 1
DOUBLES
In doubles competition, Penn State started off strong against Cornell and the Temple Owls. Mailk Bhatnagar and Bora Sengul took down Cornell's Nathan Mao and Adit Sinha, 6-4, in the first match of the day.
Miko Eala and Charl Morgan had the same success in a 6-2 win over Temple's Thibault Frumholz and Léo Raquin.
The duo of Sam Bossem and Loren Byers were felled by Cornell partners Jack McCarthy and Samuel Paquette in a 6-3 match. While Nittany Lions Ondrej Ctverak and Chikaya Sato were defeated, 6-2, by the Temple duo of Marin Delmas and Louis Gorregues.
Penn State finished their doubles competition on a high note with a 6-2 win from Harrison Janes and Ismail Saadi over Cornell's Tomas Salgado and Temple's Amine Zraidi.
SINGLES
The Nittany Lions overcame a little bit of a slow start in singles play and secured four wins on the day. Eala, Sengul, Morgan, Bhatnagar, Bossem, and Saadi were all defeated by their opponents.
Byers found his win in a 6-4, 7-5 match against Cornell's Paquette, Sato and Ctverak defeated their singles opponents, Frumholz and Salgad, and Janes ended the day with two wins under his belt in a 6-0, 6-2 match versus Zraidi.
Day 2
DOUBLES
Taking on Penn on day two, Penn State continued to play hard. Morgan and Eala took on Jason Hildebrandt and Zach Smith in a 6-4 match, while Bossem and Byers triumphed over Zachery Lim and Baylor Sai, 6-4.
Sengul and Bhatnagar were felled 6-4 by the Penn duo Edoardo Graziania and Kevin Zhu.
Janes and Saadi were defeated by partners Aditya Gupta and Harsh Parikh, 7-5.
Beaten by Sameer Gangoli and Tal Goodman, Sato and Ctverak lost 6-3 and the Nittany Lions ended their doubles competition 2-3 on the day.
SINGLES
In singles on Saturday, Penn State played 10 matches and won four. Coming out on top, Bossem, Byers, and Ctverak edged their Penn competition in two matches. In back-and-forth play Sato came to the same conclusion over Smith, 6-0, 0-6, 6-2.
Sengul, Bhatnagar, Eala, Morgan, Saadi, and Janes were all defeated by their Penn opponents in singles play on Saturday.
Day 3
DOUBLES
Day three of the Penn Invitational saw Penn State take on the Drexel Dragons. Sweeping the doubles competition, Bhatnagar and Sengul started off playing the Penn duo Hildebrant and Smith and came out on top, 6-4.
Morgan/Eala, Bossem/Byers, and Sato/Ctverak all found the same success in their own doubles matches and gave the Nittany Lions a 4-0 record on the day.
SINGLES
Penn State also swept the singles competition on day three of the Penn Invitational. Sengul defeated Drexel's Alex De Sousa in two games, while Byers took down Alan Jesudason in three.
Morgan, Bhatnagar, Sato and Janes also bested their Drexel opponents in two games.
In a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 match, Ctverak finished off Drexel's Matvey Radionov.
"Just getting the guys back on the court competing is not something we take for granted," said associate head coach Paul Tobin. "The first day we played Cornell and Temple inside. Our doubles were on target and we felt comfortable out there. The second day against Penn we came out winning in doubles again, but some guys struggled in singles. We finished up well against Drexel. Sweeping all singles and doubles. We have a lot ot work on, but the guys really just need to play matches."
The Penn State Nittany Lions will be back in action the weekend of October 15 for the ITA Regionals in Annapolis, MD.