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Men’s Tennis Tested at MTSU Fall Invitational 9/20/2005 Murfreesboro — The Vanderbilt men’s tennis team, under new head coach Ian Duvenhage, competed against 16 other teams — including four SEC teams — at the Middle Tennessee Fall Invitational over the weekend. One of the best Commodore performances was freshman Nick Cromydas, who won Flight B1 Singles. Cromydas won eight straight sets to take the flight. He defeated Belmont’s Javier Rodriguez 6-2, 6-1 in the finals. He also dispatched Austin Peay’s Andrew Naidu (6-1, 6-1), Western Kentucky’s Chad True (6-4, 6-1) and Southern Illinois’ Felipe Villasenor (6-2, 6-3) to get to the finals. Junior Andy Mack (Plano, Texas) won two matches in the Flight A1 Singles Draw before falling to SEC foe Bram tem Berge of Ole Miss in the semifinals. Sophomore Ryan Preston had some of the closest matches while competing in the Flight A2 Singles. Preston won his first match in three sets over Auburn’s Brett Hunter, then needed 14 points in the second-set tiebreaker to get by MTSU Rishan Kuruppu and advance to the semifinals. Preston again needed three sets there as he defeated Ole Miss’ Christopher Rea 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 before falling to Kentucky’s Bruno Agostinelli 6-1, 6-4. Junior Evan Dufaux nearly got to face Preston, but he fell to Rea in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-3. Dufaux won his first match against MTSU’s Greg Pollack 6-4, 6-2. Sophomore Jordan Magarik and junior Nathan Sachs were also in the Flight A2 bracket, but both lost their first matches. Magarik fell to Belmont’s Fausto Rocha 6-4, 7-6 (2), while Sachs dropped a 7-5, 7-5 decision to the top seed Brandon Allan of Middle Tennessee. Both players were then moved into the consolation bracket where Sachs won his first match 6-1, 6-2 before falling to Memphis’ Matt Brewer 6-3, 7-6 (3). Magarik also fell to Brewer the round earlier, 6-0, 6-2. On the doubles side, the Commodores had two tandems compete in the Flight A1 Doubles, while Sachs and Cromydas teamed up in the Flight A2 Doubles. The team of Dufaux and Mack outlasted an Auburn squad of Nick Lane and Brett Hunter 8-4, and defeated the No. 2 seed MTSU combo of Adreas Siljestrom and Marco Born 8-6, but ultimately fell in the semifinals. The lost a 9-7 decision to Mississippi’s Rea and Erling Tveit, who had been the top seed in the A1 Singles draw. Preston and Magarik made it to the quarterfinals with a 8-5 victory over UT-Chattanooga’s Arturo Navarro and Ryan Fitzgerald, but fell 8-3 to the eventual flight winners Kai Schledorn and Brandon Allan of MTSU. Sachs-Cromydas made it to the semifinals of Flight A2 before bowing out in 9-7 loss to a team of Memphis’ Bryan Bankester and Indiana St.’s Rishi Behl. Sachs and Cromydas did win their first two matches 8-4 and 8-5. Coach Duvenhage will use the tournament as a starting block to see where his program is and prepare his team for the 2006 Spring season. |
