A trio of Middlebury men's tennis players participated in day one of the NCAA Singles and Doubles Tournaments on Thursday, highlighted by the doubles duo of Peter Heidrich and Palmer Campbell advancing to the quarterfinal round. Matches are being held at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio and hosted by Ohio Northern University and the Warren County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

In a bracket of 16 tandems, Heidrich and Campbell needed three sets to get past Carnegie Mellon's Will Duncan and Chris Heaney-Secord. Campbell and Heidrich won the first set 6-3, but the Tartan duo tied the match at 1-1 with a 6-3 victory in set number two. Looking for a spot in the quarterfinals, the Panther team advanced via a 6-3 triumph in the final set.

They will play Washington-St. Louis' Jeremy Bush and Ross Putterman on Friday at 4:00 p.m., as the Bears' team knocked off the #4 seed consisting of Frankie Fischer and Chris Wooten from Texas-Tyler in three sets.

In the singles competition, Ari Smolyar (left) began the tournament as the #3 overall seed. He eased past Connor Hudson of Pomona-Pitzer by set scores of 6-2 and 6-0.

During his round of 16 match, Smolyar tallied a narrow victory in the first set against Mary Washington's Tyler Carey by a score of 7-6 (7). Carey took the next two sets and the match by scores of 6-3 and 6-4. With his 1-1 record on Thursday, Smolyar concludes his junior season as the northeast region's top-ranked player with a record of 30-5.