MARISA MILLER | STAFF REPORTER
The Butler men’s tennis team traveled to West Lafayette to compete in the 2015 Purdue Fall Invitational this past weekend. Three flights made up the doubles competition, and six flights for the singles competition.
The field for the tournament contained 17 teams. The participating teams included host Purdue, Butler, Dayton, Louisville, Tennessee, Southern Illinois, Marquette, Eastern Kentucky, Ball State, Lewis, Wright State, Tennessee Tech, IUPUI, University of Indianapolis, Toledo and Chicago State.
The Bulldogs posted wins in both the Flight A and B doubles brackets. Mason Dragos and Ari Gerstein won their first match in Flight A but lost their second. They won against Jorge Alfonzo and Guille Nicolas of Tennessee Tech 8-3, before falling 8-6 to Arklon Huertas Del Pino and Christoph Drechsler of U Indy.
Adrian Mag and Spencer Lang captured two victories in Flight B, before falling in the quarterfinals. Mag and Lang’s victories came over Jac Newis and Marcus Nalley of IUPUI 8-2 and Gabriel Niculescu and Gonzalo Martinez of Chicago State 8-6. The pair’s day came to a close after a quarterfinal loss to Wilder Pimentel and Alex Pozo of Southern Illinois 8-6.
In Flight C of the doubles bracket, Temilope Adelakun and Alex Woldmoe lost their first match, putting them in the back-draw. In their third and final tournament match, Adelakun and Woldmoe defeated Matt Helm and Nemanja Guzina of Ball State 8-6.
In the singles’ brackets, Dragos and Gerstein each posted two wins in their respective flights. In Flight D, Dragos moved easily through his first two rounds with wins against Eastern Kentucky’s Indra Patwardhan 6-1, 6-4 and Thomas Kyle of Southern Illinois 6-3, 6-2.
Gerstein did not have an easy trip through Flight C. The freshman tallied some hard-fought victories in the first two rounds after dropping the first set in each of the rounds. Gerstein posted wins against Tennessee Tech’s Alfonzo 6-7 (3), 7-5, 6-4, and Marko Guzina from Ball State 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-2.
Dragos and Gerstein would each lose their third match of the day. Dragos lost his quarterfinal match after a battle with Tennessee Tech’s Nicolas 6-4, 7-6 (3). Gerstein fell to the eventual champion of Flight C, Vince Anzalone of Toledo 6-1, 6-3.
Mikheil Khmiadashvili had his first action of the day in Flight A. He would win his first match of the day but drop his second. Khmiadashvili defeated Zach Berry of Dayton 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and lost 7-6 (4), 6-3 to Brandon Lancaster of Louisville.
Flight B had Lang representing Butler. Lang’s day was the same as Khmiadashvili, winning his first match but losing his second. Lang won against Sebastian Mueller of Eastern Kentucky in the first round.
The Bulldogs do not play again until Oct. 15 when they will travel to Knoxville, Tenn. for the ITA Regionals hosted by the University of Tennessee.
