The Wabash tennis team opened its 2014-15 season at the US Tennis Assocation /Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region Tournament over the weekend. The Little Giants picked up several key wins in a promising start to the year.
Wabash served as the host school at the event, played Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at the Barbara S. Wynne Tennis Center at North Central High School. A total of 30 teams throughout the region participated in the event, which featured both singles and doubles play.
Daniel Delgado and
William Reifeis were seeded 16th in 64-team bracket of doubles. The pair opened with an 8-3 victory over Joey Sander and Jason Wissman Friday to advance to the round of 32 followed by an 8-1 win against Alex Abbuhl and Quinn Jennings from Elmhurst to move to the round of 16. Delgado and Reifeis lost to Kevin Chu and Jason Haugen, the sixth-seeded pair from Washington University-St. Louis who went on to lose to the eventual tournament runners-up.
Mark Troiano and
Michael Makio opened the tournament with an 8-3 victory over 15th-seeded David Desimone and Branden Metzler from Kalamazoo College. The Wabash twosome came back Friday afternoon with an 8-2 win against Michael Selin and Brian Sun from the University of Chicago before losing a tight 8-6 contest in the round of 16.
Mazin Hakim and
Kirill Ivashchenko combined for an 8-1 victory in the opening round of the "B" draw doubles bracket before dropping an 8-1 contest to the eventual bracket champions, Peter Dakich and Michael Liu from Kenyon.
George Go III and
Nathan Neal lost their opening "B" bracket doubles match but rallied for an 8-6 win in the consolation bracket. The duo lost 8-5 in the consolation quarterfinals.
Reifeis added a singles win in his first collegiate tournament with a straight sets victory (6-2, 7-5) over Guillermo Dominquez from Kalamazoo in the "A" draw, which featured 128 of the top players in the region. Troiano also scored a first-round victory with a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-1 win versus Oberlin's Soren Zeliger. Delgado advanced to the third round of the consolation bracket in the "A" draw after suffering an opening round loss. He defeated Samuel Schuster from Hope College 6-1, 6-0 before falling in a three-set battled to Andrew Komarov from Case Western. Delgado won the opening set 6-4, lost by the same score in the second set, then fought in a 20-game third set before dropping the decision 11-9 to Komarov.
Nicolas Chua from the University of Chicago won the men's singles regional title Monday, defeating Tyler Kratky from Washington-St. Louis 6-3, 7-5. David Liu and Deepak Sabada from Chicago claimed the doubles title with a three-set win (6-4, 2-6, 10-5) over Christopher Krimbill and Louie Stuerke from Case Western.
The tournament concludes the fall portion of the season for the Little Giants. The spring events begin with home matches against Augustana and Case Western Reserve January 31 at the Collett Tennis Center.
2014 USTA/ITA Central Region Tennis Tournament Results
