Men’s tennis team shows strong depth at Middlebury Invitational
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — Bates College’s Danilo Acosta and Zach Fenno each advanced to the finals of the D Flight Singles, and teamed up to make the B Flight Doubles final, highlighting the Bobcat men’s tennis team’s performances at this weekend’s Middlebury Invitational.
Acosta, a junior from Quito, Ecuador, defeated Lyndon State’s Peter Barrowclough, 6-4, 6-2, Trinity’s Willie Leonard, 3-6, 6-4 (14-12), and Skidmore’s Jeremy Hogan, 6-2, 6-1 to reach the final. There he met Fenno in a match to be played.
Fenno, a first-year from Armonk, N.Y., beat Armin Drake of Bowdoin, 6-2, 1-6 (10-7) in the first round of D Flight Singles, Middlebury’s Mason Graddock, 6-1, 6-1 and Bowdoin’s Blake Wheale, 6-3, 6-2 en route to the final.
Acosta and Fenno defeated Rochester’s Brad Christensen and Jon Kung, 8-2, Wheaton’s Will Stoddard and Brian Danishevsky, 8-6, and Bowdoin’s Wheale and Adam Davis, 8-5, before bowing in the B Flight Doubles finals to Bowdoin’s Jamie Neely and Andrew MacDonald, 8-2.
Bates first-year Amrit Rupasinghe (Colombo, Sri Lanka) defeated Rochester’s Thanos Kantarelis, 7-5, 6-1 before bowing out of A Flight Singles in the quarterfinals to Middlebury’s Conrad Olson, 7-5, 6-1. Also in A Flight Singles, Bates sophomore Ben Stein (Pelham, N.Y.) defeated Skidmore’s Josh Rucker, 6-3, 6-2, then lost in the quarterfinals to Bowdoin’s Sam Bitetti, 7-6, 4-6 (10-5).
Bates senior Greg Little (Hampton, N.H.), competing in B Flight Singles, defeated Trinity’s Tom Dolan, 2-6, 6-4 (10-6) in the first round, and lost to Middlebury’s Filip Marinkovic, 6-1, 6-3. Also in B Flight, sophomore Mike Sherman (Huntington, N.Y.) defeated Rochester’s Aaron Gettinger, 6-1, 5-7 (10-7), then lost to Colby’s Zach Schuman in the quarterfinals, 6-1, 7-5.
In C Flight Singles, Bates first-year Ryan Mannelly (New Canaan, Conn.) defeated Middlebury’s Eliot Jia, 6-3, 3-6 (10-6), then fell to Bowdoin’s Davis in the quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-1. First-year Max Berger (Concord, N.H.) was defeated in the first round of C Flight Singles by Trinity’s Nick White, 4-6, 6-1 (10-7).
Little and Stein teamed up to win a match in the first round of A Flight Doubles, beating Rochester’s Eric Hansen and Kantarelis, 8-6, before losing to Middlebury’s Marinkovic and Olson, 8-6. Also in A Flight Doubles, Rupasinghe and Mannelly lost in the first round to Middlebury’s Alex Scott and George Mayer, 8-2.
In B Flight Doubles, Berger and first-year Michael Reiss (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) lost in the first round to Bowdoin’s Jamie Neely and Andrew MacDonald, 8-0.
The Bates men will play next at the ITA New England Region Championships at Williams College on Sept. 29.