CANTON, N.Y. – The Union College men's tennis team earned seven first-round victories and saw two doubles entries remain in the hunt for a title after day one of the St. Lawrence University Fall Classic, held on Saturday at the Sammis Tennis Courts and Newell Field House.
Two of the three Union entries earned a win on the "A" singles bracket on Saturday. Junior Jesus Sosa knocked off SLU's Bennett Stout in the first round by an 8-6 score, while sophomore Simon Philip outlasted University of Rochester's Ziwen Ju in a tiebreaker, 8-7 (7-4). Sosa and Philip both fell in the quarterfinals by the same 8-2 score, while senior Solen Bellemare lost an 8-5 first-round match to UR's Kaiser Zhao.
In "B" singles action, junior Arhan Gupta earned an 8-6 win over SLU's Kameron Fernandez to start the day, but came up short in an 8-5 quarterfinal match to Rochester's Joshua Chu. Union's other three competitors dropped first round matches on Saturday: senior Shreyas Kode came up a break short to Ithaca College's Alex Mazza, 8-6; senior Daniel Saxe fell to Rochester's Alan Wang by a 7-2 score; and sophomore Alain Uzelac came out on the wrong end of an 8-5 match with Andrew Balsamo of Rochester. Saxe did rebound with an 8-6 win over Rowan Bepler (SLU) in the consolation quarterfinals, setting him up for a berth in tomorrow's consolation semifinals.
Junior Riichi Nagatake and sophomore Reilly Fowles both earned one win in the "C" singles bracket, with Fowles taking down SLU's Willem Naughton, 8-5, and Nagatake outlasting SLU's Jackson Murray by an 8-6 score. Both competitors came up just short in the quarterfinals, however, as Fowles fell 9-7 to top-seeded Jake David of SLU and Nagatake was barely upended by Hobart College's Roman Ortega Peris, 9-8 (7-5).
Both Union entries are still alive in the "A" doubles bracket, with Union combining for four wins on the day. In the top half of the bracket, Bellemare and Sosa defeated Ethan Samora and Kaiser Zhao of Rochester by an 8-6 score and then used a tiebreaker to knock off SLU's fourth-seeded Jake David and Joshua David, 8-7 (7-4). Gupta and Philip advanced past the top seed in the bottom half as well, besting Luis Crespo and Shivam Udani of Ithaca, 8-6, before another 8-6 win over second-seeded Ju and Haocheng Liu of Rochester.
Union fell short in both "B" doubles first-round matches, as Fowles and Nagatake dropped an 8-3 match to Naughton and Michael Chaho (SLU) and Uzelac and Saxe fell in a tiebreaker to SLU's Preston Mcarthy and Justin Son, 8-7 (7-1).
Union will be back on the courts tomorrow to finish up play at the St. Lawrence Fall Classic.
