Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Four advance for men's tennis at ULL Invitational
09/12/2009 | 12:00:00 | Men's Tennis
Sept. 12, 2009
By Michael Benson
www.SIUSalukis.com
Lafayette, La. - The SIU men's tennis team finally got underway Saturday at the Louisiana-Lafayette Invitational, even though rain has forced the cancellation of doubles play and limiting singles play to single elimination. However, more rain in the late afternoon forced play to be suspended again.
In the four flights, Anton Leonenko, Brandon Florez, Pavlo Buryi, and Orhan Spahic all won their first round matches. In Flight 1, Leonenko defeated Julien Roussel of Southern Mississippi, 8-6. Flight 2 saw Florez triumph over New Orleans' Ben Smith by default. Buryi won his first match in Flight 3 by default, but later fell to D. Moser of Ouachita Baptist (8-0). Also in Flight 3, Spahic prevailed against Pushpendra Rajpurouit of Alcorn State via default.
Also taking the court Saturday was Chikara Kidera, who was eliminated by Ben Smith of New Orleans in Flight 2, while Jordan Snyder was unable to complete his first match due to rain.
"For most of our guys this tournament was their first college match," noted head coach Dann Nelson. "Because of all the rain, we didn't get to play much tennis. We have identified several things that we need to work on this week to get ready for the Hoosier Invitational next week."
Play will resume tomorrow at 8 a.m., as tournament directors hope to complete all singles flights.
Players Mentioned
