Men’s tennis successful at USTA/ITA Northeast Regional

This weekend was a tough but exciting one for the men’s tennis team, which competed in the USTA/ITA Northeast Regional at Yale over the weekend, despite the unfortunate timing of the event coinciding with midterms. The Tigers played notably well, with sophomore Diego Vives reaching the singles quarterfinals and the dynamic duo of junior Alex Day and sophomore Luke Gamble powering through into the tournament semifinals.

The tournament beganon Thursday, with freshman Jimmy Wasserman and junior Jonathan Carcione looking to advance through the qualifying singles round, competing against 46 other players looking to lay claim to one of 16 spots in the main draw that began earlyFridaymorning. Both players collected two wins, qualifying for the first round of main singles and advancing onto the next day.

Thursday’ssuccess put eight Tigers in the main draw, with Carcione, Wasserman, sophomore Kial Kaiser and classmate Gamble competing in the first roundon Friday, while Vives and juniors Tom Colautti, Josh Yablon and Day were seeded high enough in singles to receive first-round byes. Colautti earned a top-four seed in the tournament, the highest Tiger seed for the weekend.

Friday’sgames went well for the Tigers, who won three of four singles matches and swept in doubles, with Kaiser, Gamble and Wasserman all advancing to the next round of singles matches, and Colautti and Vives, Day and Gamble, and Kaiser and Yablon all advancing to the next round of doubles matches. Unfortunately, Carcione fell to Dartmouth’s Max Fliegner.

On Saturday, the four Tigers with first-round byes played their respective singles matches. Vives dominated, clawing past Yale’s Photos Photiades before an exciting win over Cornell’s Stefan Vinti in three, despite a second-set loss. Colautti won his first match of the day in the round of 64 but fell in the round of 32 to Colin Sinclair of Cornell. Yablon faced a similar fate, defeating his first opponent before falling to Ciro Riccardi of Dartmouth. Two Tiger doubles advanced toSunday, with Vives and Colautti advancing after a win over Stony Brook and Gamble and Day after a win over a Penn pair.

The Tigers continued their push on Sunday, which saw a walkover win for Vives to advance him toMonday’squarterfinal, while Day and Gamble won both of their doubles matches against Dartmouth and Brown to advance on to the semifinals. In an unfortunate turn, the Cornell pair of Sinclair and David Volfson defeated Colautti and Vives to knock them out of the tournament.

The final day of Tiger play saw the Tigers fall in both of their matches, with Dartmouth duo of Roko Glasnovic and Diego Pedraza defeating Day and Gamble in doubles, while Penn’s Kyle Mautner rallied from a second-set loss to win against Vives in three sets.

After this weekend, the Tigers have some time off from competing. The Tigers will return to action at the LSU Fall Invitational on Thursday, Nov. 5in Baton Rouge.