Sept. 22, 2008

FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. - The St. John's men's tennis team competed in the USTA Billie Jean King Men's Collegiate Invitational this past weekend at the USTA National Tennis Center in nearby Flushing Meadows. A Total of 18 schools were represented at the invite, which featured three doubles flights and seven singles flights.

Milo Hauk had the best performance for the Red Storm in his first taste of collegiate tennis. He posted a 3-1 record as he reached the finals of singles flight five. The freshman defeated Chris Post from St. Bonaventure, 6-4, 6-3, in the opening round and Yale's Erik Blumenkranz in the quarters in three sets, 0-6, 7-6(7), 6-3. Akash Muppidi of BC was Hauk's semifinal opponent, and the first-year player came out on top 6-1, 7-6(8) in the second-set tiebreaker. Alistair Felton of Harvard would win the flight, however, by the score of 7-5, 6-4 over Hauk in the finals.

Also in singles flight five, sophomore Pavel Cerny posted a 2-1 mark en route to a semifinals appearance. Cerny fell in three sets to Harvard's Felton in the semis, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

In other singles action, junior Martin Kosut lost to Asanan Jain of Binghamton in the opening round of singles flight four, but won his last two matches in the losers' bracket over Army's Tripp Johnson and Jeff Friedman of Dartmouth to finish at 2-1 on the weekend. Senior Jordan Talbot also went 2-1, sandwiching wins over Marist's Matt Himmelsbach and Boston College's Brian Locklear with a loss to Andy Gauthier of Cornell in the quarterfinals of singles flight six.

Sophomore Asaf Honig competed in singles flight two and finished with a 1-1 record, while senior Alex Svetlakov also put up a 1-1 mark in singles flight three. In singles flight four, senior Gustavo Loza finished with a 1-2 record, as junior Derek Wallensteen ended the weekend with a 0-3 mark in singles flight six.

In doubles action, Hauk and Loza teamed up and reached the semifinals of doubles bracket three. After convincing wins in the first two rounds over Jeffrey Friedman and Andrew Malizia of Dartmouth, 8-4, and BC's Akash Muppidi and Brian Locklear, 8-6, the pair fell to Andy Gauthier and Jeremy Feldman from Cornell in the semis, 8-3.

Also in doubles, the tandem of Cerny/Wallensteen won its first match against Dartmouth's Daniel Freeman and Chris Ho in the opening round of doubles flight two. After falling to Jeff Dawson and Erik Blumenkranz from Yale in the quarterfinals, Cerny and Wallensteen rebounded to claim a victory in the winners' bracket consolation over Post/Leo Mochizuki of St. Bonaventure, 5-3 (retired).

The doubles teams of Kosut/Svetlakov and Honig/Talbot both claimed 1-2 records on the weekend in doubles flights one and three, respectively.

The Red Storm men's tennis team returns to action next weekend, Sept. 26-28, when the team travels to Princeton, N.J. to take part in the Farnsworth Invitational.