The Middlebury men's tennis team took part in the Wallach Invitational hosted by Bates over the weekend. Four singles flights containing 16 participants each as well as two doubles flights with 16 duos apiece were contested. Middlebury returns to action from October 23-25 at the Boston Invitational hosted by Tufts.
In the "C" singles flight, Kyle Schlanger advanced to the final with three impressive straight-set victories. He blanked Andrew Berghuis of Bates (6-0, 6-0) in the first round, and eased past Skidmore's Max Swerdlick (6-4, 6-0) during the quarterfinal. In the semifinal, Schlanger posted a 6-3, 6-1 victory against Bowdoin's Luke Carstens, but fell to Gil Roddy of Bowdoin in the finals via scores of 3-6, 6-3, 10-5.
Also recording a win in the "C" flight was Peter Martin, who defeated Brandeis' Jeffrey Cherkin (6-1, 6-4) before losing to Roddy in the quarters (7-6 (2), 6-2).
Middlebury had two players advance to the semifinal round in flight "D" in Jack Welch and Cole Sutton. Welch earned a victory in his first match and needed three sets (6-3, 3-6, 10-6) to get past Carlos de Bracamonte of Amherst in his quarterfinal. Welch fell to Tufts' Chris Jones (6-1, 6-0) in the semifinal.
On the bottom half of the bracket, Sutton cruised past John Neufeld of Bates (6-0, 6-0) and Tufts' Justin Brogan (7-5, 6-3). He was defeated in the semifinals by eventual champion Grant Urken of Bowdoin via tallies of 6-2, 6-2.
William de Quant earned a 6-0, 6-4 win in the "A" singles bracket over Rohan Gupte of Tufts, but lost to eventual champion Luke Trinka of Bowdoin in three sets (6-2, 4-6, 10-4). Teammate Palmer Campbell also took part in the bracket, falling to Bowdoin's Luke Tercek in three sets (2-6, 6-4, 10-6).
The "B" singles flight saw Allen Jackson post a hard-fought 3-6, 7-6 (5), 10-8 victory over Steven Koulouris of Skidmore in his first match, but fall to Bowdoin's Jerry Jiang (6-3, 6-2) in the quarters. Timo van der Geest was defeated by Rob Jacobson of Tufts (6-1, 7-5) in the upper half of the bracket.
In doubles play, the duos of Jackson and Schlanger as well as Campbell and de Quant both fell in their opening-round matches in the "A" bracket.
The "B" flight saw Sutton and Welch pick up an 8-4 win over a Bates' tandem before losing in the quarters. The Panther team of van der Geest and Martin fell during their first-round match in the bracket.
In addition to the Wallach Invitational, Ari Smolyar and Noah Farrell competed as individuals in the Dartmouth Invitational that featured mainly Division I foes.
Competing in the top singles bracket, Smolyar lost his first match to Dartmouth's Eddie Grabill (6-3, 6-7, 6-1). He rebounded with a 6-2, 6-1 victory against Fairfield's Brad Orban before falling in straight sets via scores of 6-2, 6-4 to Brown's Brandon Yeoh.
In the second flight, Farrell lost his first match to Peter Tarwid of Brown (7-5, 6-3) and won via a walkover in his next match. In a matchup of two Division III players, Farrell defeated Amherst's Andrew Yaraghi by scores of 6-2, 6-3.
During doubles, the Panther duo lost to Dartmouth's Max Schmidt and Roko Glasnovic, 8-3. The pair rebounded with an 8-2 victory over Orban and Jeffrey Rodgers from Fairfield followed by an 8-5 win against Williams' Yuxin Wu and Sachin Raghavan.
